Catholic bishop urges Macron to fight for France’s good

CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2020 / 11:48 am (CNA).- Politicians of the Democratic Unionist Party, the leading pro-life party in Northern Ireland, along with other pro-life leaders, are lamenting that new laws permitting elective abortion in the region came into force Tuesday.

Paul Givan, a DUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said March 31 that “here in Northern Ireland they have the most extreme, radical, abortion laws anywhere in Europe. It is a travesty that this has been allowed to happen.”

DUP leader Arlene Foster called it a “sad day.”

Jim Allister, the Traditional Unionist Voice’s sole member of the legislative assembly, said: “From today, what should be the safest place for an unborn, namely its mother’s womb, can become on a whim one of the most dangerous places – because we are going now to have utterly unfettered, uncontrolled abortion up to 12 weeks.”

The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 also allow abortions up to 24 weeks “in cases where the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy.”

Abortion access is permitted with no time limit in cases of severe fetal impairment and fatal fetal abnormalities.

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

Both Lives Matter, a pro-life movement in the region, commented that “tragically, too many abortions happen because sadly women fear life and choose death. It is more important than ever before that those of us who recognise and value both lives in every pregnancy, offer better than abortion. Women and girls deserve access to all the practical, material and emotional services they need to choose life.”

Clare Bailey, the Green Party in Northern Ireland leader, welcomed the new regulation, saying that “access to abortion is a positive move.”

Sinn Féin has supported the liberalization of abortion law.

Northern Ireland’s new law allows doctors, registered nurses, and registered midwives to perform abortions.

Though in England, Wales, and Scotland, two medical professionals must certify in all cases that there were lawful grounds for abortion, in Northern Ireland only one medical professional is needed for certification in elective abortions or in cases of immediate necessity where there is a risk to the life of the mother.

The lower threshold in Northern Ireland was adopted at least in part because “it is likely that there will be a more significant number of people raising conscientious objections than in other parts of the UK.”

Consientious objection is allowed for direct participation in abortion, but not for ancillary, administrative, or managerial tasks associated with the procedure, because that “would have consequences on a practical level and would therefore undermine the effective provision of abortion services in Northern Ireland.”

Buffer zones have not been set up around locations where abortions are procured, barring protest in the locations’ immediate vicinity. The government has decided to wait and see what the situation will be, keeping the matter under review so it can “respond to any challenges as needed at the time.”

The new framework was adopted to implement Westminster’s Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which decriminalized abortion in Northern Ireland and placed a moratorium on abortion-related criminal prosecutions, and obliged the UK government to create legal access to abortion in the region by March 31.

It was passed while the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended, though the legislature resumed meeting in January.

Northern Ireland rejected the Abortion Act 1967, which legalized abortion in England, Wales, and Scotland, and bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.

John Hayes, the Conservative MP for South Holland and The Deepings, said ahead of the regulations’ introduction that the process was “overriding devolution.”

“It seems likely this will be interpreted as the UK Government imposing its will on a reluctant part of the Kingdom which is doubtless disdainfully regarded by Whitehall’s liberal elite as antediluvian,” he wrote earlier this month.

The amendment to the NI EF Act obliging the government to provide for legal abortion in Northern Ireland was introduced by Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who represents a London constituency.

In October 2019, 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.

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

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London, England, Jul 22, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The High Court has agreed to hear in September a bid from the parents of Tafida Raqeeb to take her to Italy for treatment. The five-year-old girl has been comatose since February, and UK doctors want to remove her life-sustaining treatment.

The UK doctors have barred Raqeeb’s parents from taking her abroad for treatment.

Two doctors from the Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa examined Raqeeb via video link earlier this month, and they agreed to care for her in Italy. They said they did not believe her to be brain dead.

Bishop John Sherrington, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster and the English and Welsh bishops’ representative on life issues, said July 18 that “Difficult dilemmas have to be faced. In that process, I hope that all due weight will be given to the wishes of her parents, while also respecting the clinical judgement of the doctors caring for her. Those of us not in possession of all the relevant information might best be reserved in our judgement.”

Raqeeb’s parents, Mohammed Raqeeb and Shelina Begum, asked the High Court in London July 16 to allow her to leave the country; its decision to hear the case was made July 22.

The court will hold a week-long hearing on Raqeeb’s case. They will also review the refusal of Royal London Hospital to allow her to be removed and taken to Italy.

Raqeeb suffered an arteriovenous malformation which resulted in a burst blood vessel in her brain, and has been in a coma since Feb. 9.

The AVM triggered cardiac and respiratory arrest, as well as a traumatic brain injury. Doctors at the Royal London Hospital say there is no chance she will recover from her coma, and declared any further medical treatment futile.

Bishop Sherrington wrote that “I trust that the doctors from the Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa will be given time and opportunity to come to a well-informed view and to share their prognosis with their colleagues here in London.”

“Such international cooperation is essential good practice in the care of tragically difficult lives.”

The bishop also offer prayers for strength for Raqeeb and her parents.

“The tragic illness and circumstances of little Tafida Raqeeb will touch everyone who hears of it. I hope it will also move them to pray, as it does me.”

He said: “I pray for this little girl that she and her parents are strengthened by the presence of God, by the mercy of God and by the support of all who know and love her.”

An online petition supported by the family requesting that Royal London Hospital allow Raqeeb to be transferred to Gaslini Children’s Hospital insists that the child should remain on life support.

“Following extensive brain surgery at King’s College hospital, doctors informed her parents that she was brain dead and to consider making preparations for her funeral,” reads the petition.

“A brain stem test indicated that Tafida did not meet the qualification of ‘brain death’ as she made gasping movements and therefore could not be removed from the ventilator.”

Since then, Raqeeb has remained on a ventilator at Royal London Hospital. According to the family, a neurologist has declared her to be in a “deep coma,” from which she is beginning to emerge. Her parents say she is able to open her eyes and move her limbs, as well as being able to swallow and react to pain.

Begum has said that doctors initially proposed giving her a tracheostomy and allowing her to return home, to continue recovery.

“The medical team have now changed their mind and want to withdraw ventilation to end her life,” Begum wrote as part of a separate online petition organized by the family.

Begum had said she wants to “exercise her rights as a parent.”

Raqeeb’s family is being represented by Yogi Amin, a human rights lawyer, who said that “The heartbroken family do not want to be caught in a situation where the state overrules the parents’ good intentions to arrange […] treatment in a hospital of their choosing for their disabled daughter.”

He added that “There is no evidence that Tafida will be harmed during transit or abroad and her loving parents should have a legal right to elect to transfer their daughter to another hospital for private medical care.”

Tafida’s case follows similar campaigns by parents in the cases of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, who were both terminally ill children in NHS care. In 2017, doctors sought to remove Charlie Gard from his ventilator, despite his parents’ wishes to transfer him to a hospital in New York City. He died in hospice at the age of 11 months, after life support was removed.

Less than a year later, the parents of Alfie Evans also objected to NHS attempts to remove his ventilator, saying they wished to move him to a hospital in Italy. Evans’ life support was eventually removed, and he survived for five days breathing on his own before dying just short of his second birthday.

[…]

Archbishop Eamon Martin. Credit: Northern Ireland Office (CC BY 2.0).

CNA Staff, Apr 20, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Archbishop Eamon Martin made the comment in a meeting with Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly […]