Category: News

Assisted suicide ban upheld in Ireland: appeal likely

Judges suggest compassionate exception might be made

A three judge panel of the Irish High Court has rejected a suit by a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis to strike down the absolute ban on assisted suicide.  The court held that it would be impossible to craft an exemption to cover her particular case that would not have implications for other cases and ultimately endanger other vulnerable people.  The Court also ruled that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) cannot issue guidelines to indicate what factors would be considered in deciding whether or not to prosecute someone for assisting a suicide, nor can the DPP be consulted in advance in particular cases.  However, the judges commented that the DPP might exercise discretion if there were reliable evidence of compliance with factors similar to those set out in prosecution guidelines issed by the Director of Public Prosecutions in England.  They added that they were sure that the Irish DPP would exercise discretion humanely and with sensitivity.  The decision is likely to be appealed. [Irish Times; Appeal Likely]

Court hears appeal of midwives ordered to participate in abortion services

A panel of three judges in Edinburgh is hearing arguments in an appeal by two midwives who were ordered to supervise provision of abortion in the National Health Service Greater Glasgow and Clyde region.  A lower court ruled that the protection of conscience provision in the 1967 Abortion Act did not apply to them.  [BBC] The case turns upon the definition of “participation,” which is not set out in the Act.

 

 

 

Facebook abortion ads: no need for coerced referrals

Sean Murphy*

The  Life Issues Institute reports that ads are being run on Facebook in the United Kingdom that offer women assistance in finding nearby abortion facilities, including late-term abortion specialists.  The ads demonstrate that there is no need to force objecting health care workers to facilitate abortion by referral or by providing abortionist contact information, as access to abortion can be easily facilitated by popular social media and websites.

Update on American HHS birth control mandate controversy

On 14 December, Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza, filed a lawsuit against the HHS regulation [Associated Press].  Five days later, a federal appeals court reinstated lawsuits filed by Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey that had been dismissed by a lower court.  The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals also ordered the Obama administration to report every sixty days on its progress in redrafting the regulation to accommodate employers with religious objections to providing insurance for birth control.[Life News]  News of the Wheaton and Belmont decisions came too late for inclusion in a column in the  New England Journal of Medicine, which outlined the litigation and the issues.The federal Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling that Hobby Lobby must comply with the mandate because it does not impose a “substantial burden” on the exercise of freedom of religion by the company’s owner. [The Hill]  In contrast, O’Brien Industrial Holdings of Missouri was granted an injunction by an appeals court that prohibits the federal government from enforcing the regulation.  The decision overturns a lower court ruling [The Foundry, 3 December].  A similar injunction was granted to the Griesedieck family‘s American Pulverizer Company in Minnesota [National Review] Commenting that there is no “trust us changes are coming” clause in the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge in New York upheld the right of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York to proceed with its lawsuit against the mandate. [Becket Fund, 6 December]    Meanwhile, the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order that provides nursing care to the elderly poor in 30 American cities, is considering the possiblity of leaving the United States if the current regulation stands. [LifeSite News]

“Normalisation of cruelty” and the ‘ethics of the profession’

Sean Murphy*

A court in the United Kingdom has awarded £410,000 ($663,000) in damages to 38 plaintiff families for an extraordinary cataloque of neglect, abandonment and abuse at the National Health Service’s Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, England.  The incidents occurred between 2002 and 2009.  Britain’s Health Secretary said that the case illustrates “the normailisation of cruelty.”  One elderly patient was left unwashed for 11 weeks and another was starved to death. [RTE Question More; The Telegraph]