LifeZine No. 741: 28th Dec 09
Calls for a Law to Protect Lives of Embryonic Humans
Minister for Health Mary Harney will bring proposals to Government in 2010 to allow for the drafting of legislation to govern “assisted human reproduction” (AHR). “The Government fully accepts its responsibility to put proposals to the Oireachtas for legislation to regulate assisted human reproduction,” a Government spokesman said. He spoke after the Supreme Court found, before Christmas, that frozen embryonic humans aren’t protected under Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution, which enshrines the right to life of the unborn child. Lawmakers must produce sensitive legislation to safeguard the life of the “embryonic human being”, the Pro-Life campaign insisted. “The human embryo is not potential life—it is human life with potential. Each one of us passed through this early stage of life on our way to birth”, commented the group’s medical advisor, Dr Berry Kiely. At a news conference in Dublin, members of the Pro-Life Campaign pointed out that the Supreme Court’s “disappointing” ruling in the frozen embryonic humans case didn’t prevent the Government from introducing a bill to protect early human life. Dr Kiely noted out that Italy and Germany have introduced legal protections for embryonic humans, even though those countries have no explicit constitutional protection for human lives at their fragile beginnings. She also said the debate wasn’t about people who favour research being pitched in ideological battle against those who oppose scientific advances: “Pro-life supporters are just as enthusiastic about the promise of finding treatments for infertility and cures for diseases, but strongly believe this can be achieved without recourse to the taking of human life”. Dr Kiely pointed out that human life began at conception—when the sperm and ovum unite: “That, scientifically, is the only thing that makes sense. From the formation of that first single cell, what you now have is an organism which is self-directing in its own development, and that is the kernel of what an individual human life is”. The campaign’s legal adviser, Prof William Binchy from Trinity College Dublin, stated that it was possible to fashion constitutional and legislative protection that didn’t disturb fertility practises that have democratic support in this country. He believed most people would regard the present situation, where there was no legal protection for embryonic humans, as unsatisfactory. The scholar said an Oireachtas committee should examine the issue in detail. “That would seem to us to be the most democratic legislative way of dealing with the issue”, he commented. The Pro-Life Campaign said they had no personal contact with the woman at the centre of the case and had given her no financial support. The Irish Examiner. December 16. The Irish Times. December 16. F&L Comment: We echo the calls for the introduction of legislation to protect embryonic humans, which the Irish Government already has on standby since the 2002 referendum on abortion. The government has no mandate for any attempt to devalue embryonic human beings or to introduce new legislation that backtracks on the 2002 bill that’s on hold. As the Supreme Court justices and others have pointed out, some of the leading European Union (EU) member states already have legislation in place to protect embryonic humans. Any attempt to present a pro-life approach as Irish exceptionalism is deliberately misleading.
Ahern Warns of HSE’s “Anti-Adoption Bias”
A former Government minister has suggested there might be an “anti-adoption bias” at senior levels of the Irish Department of Health and of the Health Service Executive (HSE). Noel Ahern (FF, Dublin North West) asked why people had to wait five years to adopt when “it only takes nine months to have a baby”. And he questioned Ireland’s letting her bilateral adoption agreement with Vietnam fall into abeyance. Mr Ahern said Minister of State Barry Andrews had referred to reports critical of Vietnam’s procedures. “But it is extraordinary”, he commented, “that other countries such as France, Denmark, Canada and Italy, do not seem to have difficulties with the bilateral arrangements with Vietnam”. He asked “whether we are being a bit too careful”. He spoke during the ongoing Dáil debate on the Adoption Bill, which would bring the Hague Convention on the protection of children and co-operation in inter-country adoption into statute law. Mr Ahern remarked during the debate, “often over the years I felt there was an attitude at a high level in the department or the HSE long before the Minister of State or his officials were there, which was not exactly friendly to the adoption process. Some people see adoption as something that happened decades ago. Perhaps concerns were raised in a few cases, but there were also thousands of children being placed in loving homes here and elsewhere”. Echoing the comments of many speakers in the debate, he alleged there was “great unhappiness relating to the HSE’s adoption process”. He sharply criticised social workers “who.. Details: CLICK TO READ MORE.....
Judge Rejects Plea to Vary Abortion Guidance Order
The Northern Ireland Department of Health has failed in a new bid to stop the complete withdrawal of controversial official guidelines on abortion in Northern Ireland. Its lawyers urged a High Court judge to vary his order so that only two sections, on counselling and conscientious objection, should be reconsidered. But Lord Justice Girvan rejected the move, stressing that the whole guidance was misleading as currently issued. A further direction for the department to pay the costs of the legal challenge was put on hold pending any potential appeal. The UK-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) brought judicial review proceedings in a bid to win a declaration that the decision to publish the advice was unlawful. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, except in circumstances where the mother’s life or mental well-being are purportedly at risk. SPUC wanted the High Court to declare that the guidance doesn’t properly set out the law. Lawyers for the group said the guidance also fails to deal with the rights of the unborn child and provides inadequate advice for conscientious objectors within the medical profession. The Department of Health’s legal representatives rejected allegations that it hadn’t made clear that abortion was illegal in Northern Ireland, except in the rarest circumstances. It also stressed that the document was for health workers, not the general public. The Irish Times. December 15.
Italian Bill Would Recognise Rights of Unborn Babies
A proposal in the Italian Senate would recognise the rights of unborn babies, affirming that every human being has juridical capacity from the moment of conception. The bill was drafted by Carlo Casini, president of the Pro-Life Movement and Member of the European Parliament (MEP), and has the backing of leaders of the Italian Parliament: Maurizio Gasparri, Gaetano Quagliarello and Laura Bianconi. They presented the measure before Christmas. During the news conference to present the bill, Gasparri explained that it wasn’t an attempt to rewrite Italy’s current abortion law, but to keep it within its original intentions. He said it would prohibit distortion of the law “to the point of denying the one conceived the dignity of a person and of using abortion as a contraceptive, two conditions that the law rejects”. Casini commented that the bill spells “progress in the juridical culture”. He maintained that recognising the rights of the unborn baby “is a more solid and lasting support for the rights of everyone”. The MEP pointed to Poland and Spain to show how the wording of laws translates into actual numbers of abortions. Those countries, he noted, have identical abortion laws, but in 2007, abortionists killed 313 babies in Poland, whereas in Spain the killed 120,000. “The essential difference lies in that Polish law refers to the conceived [baby] in the first point as a person, whereas for a certain Spanish culture, the conceived [baby] is ‘something,’ a mass of cells that has no rights”, he explained. Bianconi, meanwhile, suggested that the Senate bill is an attempt “to move the whole debate” into the context of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child: “A defence of childhood, which must be both before as well as after birth, must provide recognition of human life until birth”. Zenit. December.
Unwanted Chinese Girl Had Needle Put into Her Head
Chinese people are so desperate for a son that when baby Pingping (not her real name) was born, her relatives allegedly tried to murder her by jamming a needle into her head. Her death would’ve let her parents try again under the Communist regime’s strict “one couple, one child” population-control policy. But the little girl didn’t die. Now 11, she had surgery before Christmas to remove the needle that doctors believe was the cause of her mental deficiency. The deputy director of the neurosurgery department at the military hospital where she received treatment said there was a common belief that sticking a needle into someone’s head would result in death. The mother of Pingping announced that she intended to bring charges against family members who might be to blame for the attempted murder of her daughter. Police advised Yang Xiaohui to keep the needle, as well as a scan that showed the object buried in her daughter’s head. Mrs Xiaohui explained that she’d been under great pressure to give birth to a son when she married Pingping’s father, because he already had a daughter by his first wife. Under pressure from her mother-in-law, she aborted her first baby after she learned the unborn baby was a girl. But she went ahead and gave birth to Pingping. She remembered that the baby barely cried after she was born, but then screamed non-stop. She ran a high temperature and had suffered from unexplained fevers ever since. Five years ago the couple took their daughter to hospital for high fever. It was then that doctors told Mrs Xiaohui they’d found a piece of metal in her daughter’s head. The Times, London. The Irish Independent. December 11.
Pope Shares Secret of True Joy: Underlines Lessons from the Manger
Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging families to go to the Baby Jesus in the Manger, and to learn from him the way to authentic Christian joy. As is the tradition, the Pope addressed the children of Rome who came to St Peter’s Square for a blessing of their little statues of Baby Jesus that were then placed in the family cribs. Speaking to pilgrims gathered for a blessing and the praying of the midday Angelus, the Pontiff said the Church “helps us to rediscover the sense and the taste of Christian joy, so different from the world’s joy”. Acknowledging the “many children and young people” present, he stated that “It is a cause of joy for me to know that in your families you continue the custom of making the crib”. “But it is not enough to repeat a traditional gesture, however important”, the Holy Father continued. “It is necessary to try to live every day what the crib represents, that is, Christ’s love, his humility, his poverty”. We must follow the example of St. Francis, he added, who “represented the scene of the Nativity to try to contemplate and adore it, but above all to know better how to put into practise the message of the Son of God, who left everything behind and became a little child out of love for us”. The “secret of true joy”, he remarked, “does not consist in having a lot of things, but in feeling loved by the Lord, in making oneself a gift for others, in loving”. The Pope explained further that “The Madonna and St. Joseph do not seem to be a very fortunate family; they had their first child in the midst of great hardships; and yet they are full of deep joy, because they love each other, they help each other and above all they are certain that God is at work in their history, God who made himself present in the little Jesus”. True joy, he affirmed, consists in “feeling that our personal and communal existence is visited and filled by a great mystery, the mystery of God's love”. “To be joyful”, the Vicar of Christ observed, “we do not just have need of things, but love and truth: We need a God who is near, who warms our heart, and responds to our profound desires. This God is manifested in Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary. This is why that Baby, whom we place in the stable or the cave, is the centre of everything, the heart of the world”. Zenit. December 13.