Europe

Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 24, 2019 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- A Northern Ireland doctor opposed to abortion said he collected the signatures of 911 health care professionals in the region who will refuse to perform abortions under a new measure that legalized the procedure.

Dr. Andrew Cupples, a general physician in Northern Ireland, collected the signatures for a letter he sent to the Northern Ireland Secretary last month. The letter, signed by doctors, nurses and midwives, stated their opposition to the new abortion laws and called for strong conscientious objection protections that would ensure that those opposed to abortion may opt out of performing or assisting with the procedure, The Independent reported.

“Hundreds of healthcare professionals in Northern Ireland will refuse to be involved in abortion services. There are even people who are planning to walk away from the healthcare service if they are forced to participate in abortion services,” Cupples told The Independent.

“There are also people in obstetrics and gynecology and midwives who are worried if they do not agree to be trained in abortion they could be forced to do so or reprimanded by their employers or a professional body,” he said.

Earlier this week, Northern Ireland’s devolved legislature failed to block changes to their abortion and gay marriage laws passed by the British Parliament, which has the authority to govern the area in the absence of a functioning local assembly.

A last-ditch effort to recall Northern Ireland’s assembly and block the new laws did not gain necessary cross-party support, and as a result, abortion and same-sex marriage are now legal in Northern Ireland.

Previously, abortion had only been permissible in the region in cases in which the mother’s life was in danger, or if there was serious risk of permanent damage to her physical or mental health if she brought her pregnancy to term.

Abortion has been legal in the rest of the UK up to 24 weeks since 1967. Pressure to legalize abortion in Northern Ireland increased after a 2018 referendum legalized abortion in the Republic of Ireland. The law in the Republic of Ireland permits medical professionals who conscientiously object to abortion to refrain from participation in the procedure; however, doctors who object to abortion must refer women to doctors who will perform them.

Documents from the Republic of Ireland’s health department earlier this year showed that abortion services are limited at nine of the country’s 19 maternity hospitals, in part due to conscientious objectors.

At least 640 general practitioners in Ireland signed a petition last November objecting to the new obligation of referring patients to other doctors for abortions.

The majority of the Reppublic of Ireland’s 2,500 GPs are unwilling to perform abortions. Only between 4-6% of GPs have said they would participate in the procedure.

Cupples told The Independent that he was most worried for midwives and other professionals who have “no protection” under the new abortion law in Northern Ireland.

Guidelines issued by Britain’s Parliament to health care professionals in Northern Ireland regarding the new abortion regulations state that “anyone who has a conscientious objection to abortion may want to raise this with their employer,” the BBC reported.

They also note that in England and Wales, medical professionals may object to participating in an abortion in a “hands on” capacity but they are still required to participate in any related administrative or health care tasks.

These guidelines apply until the end of March, by which time a 12-week public consultation will have concluded and the Northern Ireland government will have issued official protocols for health care professionals regarding abortion in the region.

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Poznan, Poland, Oct 22, 2019 / 04:07 pm (CNA).- The Polish Bishops’ Conference has asked Pope Francis to name St. John Paul II a patron of Europe and doctor of the Church.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, president of the Polish Bishops C… […]

Warsaw, Poland, Oct 22, 2019 / 11:22 am (CNA).- Venerable Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw from 1948 to 1981, will be beatified in Warsaw June 7, 2020, the city’s archbishop announced Monday.

“We have to put the main emphasis on his spirituality, because we know a lot more about Cardinal Wyszyński as a statesman and someone who defended man, the Church, and his homeland,” Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw said Oct. 21.

The beatification will take place in Warsaw’s Piłsudski Square.

“Cardinal Wyszyński was the rock around which Polish Catholicism rallied during the worst periods of communist oppression,” George Weigel told CNA Oct. 22.

Wyszyński “also designed the ‘Great Novena,’ the re-catechesis of the entire country between 1957 and 1966, which laid the religious and moral foundations on which the Solidarity movement was later built,” he said.

Wyszyński was instrumental in the appointment of Karol Wojtyla as Archbishop of Krakow in 1964.

“Wyszyński and Wojtyla had different visions of the Church – Wojtyla was much more the man of Vatican II – but as Archbishop of Kracow Wojtyla was completely loyal to Wyszyński, never letting the communists play divide-and-conquer,” Weigel said.

“And there is no doubt that Wojtyla shared Wyszyński’s view that the Vatican ‘Ostpolitik’ strategy of accommodating communist regimes was serious foolishness,” he added.

Wyszyński is credited with helping to conserve Christianity in Poland during communist rule.

He was placed under house arrest by communist authorities for three years for refusing to punish priests active in the Polish resistance against the government.

“The fear of an apostle is the first ally of his enemies,” Wyszyński wrote in his notes while under arrest. “The lack of courage is the beginning of defeat for a bishop,” he wrote.

The Vatican announced approval of a miracle attributed to Wyszynski’s intercession Oct. 3.

The miracle involved the healing of a 19 year-old woman from thyroid cancer in 1989. After the young woman received the incurable diagnosis, a group of Polish nuns began praying for her healing through the intercession of Cardinal Wyszyński, who had died of abdominal cancer in 1981.

Born in the village of Zuzela in what was then the Russian Empire in 1901, Wyszyński was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Włocławek at age 24, celebrating his first Mass at the Jasna Gora Shrine in Czestochowa. He served as a military chaplain during the Warsaw uprising against the Germans in 1944, and was made Bishop of Lublin in 1946.

In 1948 he was appointed Archbishop of  Gniezno and Warsaw, and he was elevated to cardinal in 1953.

Wyszynski died 15 days after Pope John Paul II was shot in an assassination attempt in 1981. Unable to attend the funeral, John Paul II wrote in a letter to the people of Poland, “Meditate particularly on the figure of the unforgettable primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski of venerated memory, his person, his teaching, his role in such a difficult period of our history.”

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Rome, Italy, Oct 22, 2019 / 03:30 am (CNA).- The writings of newly-canonized St. John Henry Newman offer important reflections for contemporary society on freedom of conscience and the duty to search for truth, said a leading figure in international re… […]

Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 21, 2019 / 05:20 pm (CNA).- Northern Ireland’s devolved legislature failed Monday to block a change to the region’s law imposed by the British parliament. As a result, both abortion and same-sex marriage will now be legal in the region.

Same-sex marriages are expected to begin taking place in Northern Ireland by February 2020, while the new abortion law is set to take effect by April 2020.

Previously, abortion was legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life was at risk or if there was risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.

The British parliament passed the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 in July, with amendments legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage.

That act took effect Oct. 22 because the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been suspended the past two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties, was not able to do business by Oct. 21.

Pro-life members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, largely comprised of members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), recalled the assembly Monday for the first time since January 2017 in order to block the relaxed abortion restrictions. The DUP favors union with the UK and is known to be a right-of-center political party on many issues.

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, told The Guardian that she hoped the recall would allow assembly members to debate the issue at the local level, and would allow those opposed to the changes officially to voice their opposition.

However, in order for the assembly to make any binding changes, the election of a speaker of the assembly with cross-party support was required. This proved impossible when the nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party walked out of the Oct. 21 meeting, the BBC reported. The assembly also would have needed to form an executive (similar to an administration), which could also not be done without cross-party presence and support.

Members of the assembly from Sinn Fein, a left-of-center nationalist party, as well as the Green Party and People Before Profit did not participate in the Oct. 21 session.

Incumbent speaker Robin Newton, a member of the DUP, also went against party leader Foster and refused to suspend normal assembly rules to allow for the introduction of the Defence of the Unborn Child Bill 2019, a DUP initiative that, had it passed by midnight, could have blocked the new abortion law.

Foster called it a “shameful day” for Northern Ireland, according to the BBC.

Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, celebrated the “decriminalisation of women that will take effect from midnight,” the BBC reported.

Abortion has been legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks since 1967, and it was legalized in the Republic of Ireland in 2018. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the rest of the UK since 2014.

Pressure to legalize abortion in Northern Ireland increased after a 2018 referendum legalized abortion in the Republic of Ireland.

Bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.

In September, religious leaders of Northern Ireland called on Ireland Secretary Julian Smith to reconvene the local legislative assembly in order to block the new liberalizing abortion laws.

“Our Northern Ireland political parties have it in their own hands to do something about this,” the religious leaders said in a Sept. 30 joint statement.

“There is no evidence that these [legal] changes reflect the will of the people affected by them, as they were not consulted. They go far beyond the ‘hard cases’ some have been talking about,” the statement added.

Signatories of the statement included leaders of the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches.

The Northern Ireland Catholic bishops’ conference previously condemned the move by the British Parliament as an “unprecedented” use of authority in the region.

Earlier this month, the High Court in Belfast had ruled that the region’s ban on the abortion of unborn children with fatal abnormalities violated the UK’s human rights commitments.

In September, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Belfast to protest the impending change to abortion restrictions in the region.

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s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, Oct 20, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A university in the Netherlands has been awarded a $3.3 million grant for the development of a working prototype of an artificial womb that will closely resemble biological conditions and ai… […]

Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 18, 2019 / 12:23 am (CNA).- Pro-life groups in Northern Ireland are hopeful that there is sufficient support in the legislature to block an expansion of legal abortion from going into effect next week.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, the pro-life group Both Lives Matter says 30 members of the legislative assembly have pledged to ask the Speaker to recall the Assembly, which the Speaker will be obligated to do under Northern Ireland law.

In order to block the new abortion measures from taking place, however, an Executive would need to be formed, which is unlikely before the Monday deadline, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

The British parliament voted in July to add same-sex marriage and a loosening of abortion restrictions as amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill, which is designed to keep the region running amid a protracted deadlock in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

If Northern Ireland Assembly is not reconvened by Oct. 21, the expansion of abortion rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage will take effect. Secretary Julian Smith would be mandated to put the laws into effect by March 31, 2020.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for the past two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties. The DUP, the largest party, is opposed to changing the law. Sinn Féin, another prominent party in Northern Ireland, backs a liberalization of the abortion law.

The DUP has said it is ready to return to the Assembly “immediately without pre-conditions,” according to local media reports.

Talks over the matter are being held Thursday and Friday.

“The British and Irish Governments both share the view that there remains an opportunity in the coming days to reach an accommodation,” Northern Ireland minister Robin Walker said Wednesday, according to the Guardian.

“One only has to look at the passionate and sincere demonstrations in recent weeks on both sides of this issue to appreciate that this remains a highly sensitive matter in Northern Ireland,” he said, adding that in the government’s view, it is preferable to have the matter decided by the Northern Ireland assembly.

Labour MP Stella Creasy criticized Walker for his statement, arguing that the UK government was only in favor of a quick resolution that handed power back to the Northern Ireland assembly because UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saw a need to secure DUP support for his Brexit negotiation plan.

The DUP has said that it does not support Johnson’s plan, arguing that its provisions on customs and value-added tax rates are not in Northern Ireland’s best interest.

Leaders of the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches, have called on their congregations to pray and lobby against the abortion changes, saying, “There is no evidence that these [legal] changes reflect the will of the people affected by them, as they were not consulted. They go far beyond the ‘hard cases’ some have been talking about.”

Last year, the Republic of Ireland held a referendum in which voters repealed the country’s pro-life protections, which had recognized the life of both mothers and their babies. Irish legislators then enacted legislation allowing legal abortion in what had long been a Catholic and pro-life stronghold.

Elective abortion is legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks, while currently it is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.

Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.

The UK government’s plans to decriminalize abortion in Northern Ireland has garnered opposition from hundreds of health professionals in the region, who the BBC reports have written to Secretary Smith expressing opposition and calling for reassurance that as “conscientious objectors,” they will not have to perform or assist abortions.
 
 

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Geneva, Switzerland, Oct 16, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Mauritania, the west African nation where slavery remains a widespread practice, is expected to be voted on to the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee on Thursday. 

According to its we… […]

Warsaw, Poland, Oct 16, 2019 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- The governing party in the Polish parliament has introduced a bill that could criminalize some forms of sex education in schools.

The Law and Justice Party (PiS), which won a majority in the country… […]

Wrocław, Poland, Oct 16, 2019 / 11:20 am (CNA).- Readers who find this story through a search engine probably were looking for information about Hedwig, Harry Potter’s snowy owl.

St. Hedwig of Silesia was not an owl. But read on anyway: she was … […]