We are pleased to post Dr. Ruth Fletcher’s submission to the Health Committee on the General Scheme of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill, 2013. Ruth is Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of Centre for Law, Ethics and Society at Keele University. She spoke at the final day of the Committee’s hearings on(…)
This morning Hong Kong took a giant leap forward in protecting transgender rights in a judgment of the Court of Final Appeal which will allow a trans* woman to marry her partner. In a judgment that some Irish politicians could do well to take note of the Court concluded that in multicultural jurisdiction such as(…)
The General Scheme of the Protection of Human Life Bill During Pregnancy Bill 2013 was published last night. The General Scheme is not a draft Bill but it gives us a sense of the likely content of the Bill and of the rationale for the proposed provisions. This is a quick overview of some of(…)
In the years preceding independence, the vision of Ireland as a women in need of protection became a standard of nationalism. Genderised Ireland has roots in Róisín Dubh and the Earl of Tyrone’s attempts to stay off the Tudor expansion in Ireland. Directly linking the Earl’s resistance to his daughter’s woes, standing in for a(…)
While the football world debates the merits of the ten match ban imposed on Luis Suarez for his biting incident, yesterday the European Court of Justice handed down a decision which will have implications for homophobic comments made by soccer club owners, managers and possibly players. Facts The Asociatia ACCEPT decision involved consideration(…)
This is a cross-post from Inherently Human: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Law and Sexuality. A great deal has been written about the recent developments in Irish abortion law. Most readers will know the basics. The Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, as interpreted in a case famously known as X, provides that a pregnancy may only(…)
Today’s (Irish) Sunday Times reports (no online link) that at least some members of Fine Gael want the proposed abortion legislation to include a requirement that six medical professionals would certify the need for abortion in cases of suicidal ideation. Whether this claim is correct or not, and whether—if it is correct—it will survive the(…)
Irish women are still travelling to England to terminate their pregnancies. Meanwhile, the legal fallout of the Eighth Amendment mounts up. At the inquest into the death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway last week, a senior midwife manager explained how she had come to make the ‘Catholic country’ remark which, in the words of the(…)
Human Rights in Ireland welcomes this guest post from Samantha Arnold. Samantha is the Children’s and Young Persons’ Office at the Irish Refugee Council. She is the manager of the Independent Advocacy Pilot, a pilot that provides one-to-one support for separated children seeking asylum. Click here to get involved or to attend an upcoming charity(…)
In February, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave its judgment in the case of Kenny & others v. Minister for Justice, a claim about pay discrimination on gender grounds between Gardai and civil servants assisting the Gardai. The case came before the ECJ on the basis of a preliminary reference from the Irish(…)
