Another UN committee pushes a radical agenda on Ireland

 

Once again, a UN body is pushing a radical agenda on Ireland at the behest of Irish NGOs. This includes allowing 16 and 17 years olds to identify as a different gender to their biological sex, ensuring free access to abortion for adolescent girls, and further undermining the rights of faith-based schools.

This time the body in question is the UN Committee on the Right of the Child (CRC). The committee monitors the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by the signatory States. It met in Geneva last month to assess a progress report from Ireland. The committee has now issued its report to Ireland and it is essentially a wishlist produced by left-leaning Irish NGOs.

For instance, on the issue of abortion, the report wants us to “Ensure access of adolescent girls to age-appropriate reproductive health services, including free and safe abortion and post-abortion services; ….”.

The committee’s recommendations on religion and schools are almost copied and pasted from the Atheist Ireland submission.

It is not surprising, therefore, to see Atheist Ireland saying that “the committee has made all of the recommendations we asked for.” One of these is that all faith schools, including minority ones, be stripped of the right to admit children of their own faith first in the event of over-enrolment.

There are important issues missing from the set of recommendations, probably because no Irish NGO was advocating for them.

For instance, there is a growing international attempt to limit children’s access to pornography. This is a topic that we should expect to be at the core of the concerns of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. However, in the 16-page document only two vague lines are dedicated to the issue. It only says: “The Committee recommends that the State party ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography”.

In making its recommendations, the CRC, like other UN bodies, goes well beyond its area of competence, basing their reports on highly questionable interpretations of the United Nations treaties and conventions.

For example, nowhere is a right to abortion mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, although the committee effectively pretends otherwise. Likewise with gender ideology.

UN committee experts cannot be familiar with the situation of every single country in the world they are asked to assess. Therefore, they rely heavily on what local NGOs tell them and have a very strong bias in favour of NGOs that reflect their ideological mindset.

A quick look at the list of the organisations that have contributed to the latest report will easily show that they have a highly ‘progressivist’ worldview.

Fortunately, the recommendations of these UN committees are not legally binding.

The Iona Institute has previously produced a paper that highlights the nature and the limits of those UN bodies of experts, which often misinterpret the treaties and conventions to push a radical agenda. You can read it here.

Unfortunately, even if not binding, these reports can and are used to drive particular agendas and the impression is often given that they have some legal force here. They are best ignored.

Children are left unprotected against extreme pornography

 

There is an urgent need to protect children from online pornography, according to a new report by the UK Children’s Commissioner. To tackle this problem, obligatory age verification to watch porn will be introduced soon in France. Ireland should consider something similar.

The UK Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, launched the new report which shows how pornography has become all-pervasive and reveals the destructive effects on young people’s lives.

Based on focus groups and a survey of 1,000 teenagers and young people, it found that 13 is the average age at which children first see online pornographic material. By age 9, 10pc have seen it. More than one out of four had seen it by age 11, and half of children have seen it by the age of 13.

The pictures or videos children have access to are not only obscene but also violent and degrading. “Depictions of degradation, sexual coercion, aggression and exploitation are commonplace, and disproportionately targeted against teenage girls”, says the report.

The age of first exposure is determined by when children first have their own device. Parents should be aware of such risks when letting their children use smartphones or tablets.

Those who were exposed to porn at younger age were significantly more likely to become frequent users and develop dependency, the report found.

The document by the UK Children’s Commissioner also found that frequent users of porn are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts.

In terms of social media or websites, Twitter is where young people are more likely to have seen porn.

51pc of girls aged 16-21, and 33pc of boys, have seen or been sent pictures and videos of people they know in real life. Other research has shown that “girls are overwhelmingly the recipients of unwanted explicit images of male peers”.

In the UK there is no legal requirement for websites hosting porn to verify the age of users, but this will change soon with the Online Safety Bill that is making its way through the British Parliament.

France has just announced that it will become the first country to introduce a “digital certificate” to prove the age of those who want to access online pornography.

This decision follows a shocking report on the pornographic industry, presented by the French Senate. The document that the porn industry “contributed to an upsurge in increasingly violent content, without any control or consideration for the conditions in which this content is produced.”

One of the recommendations put forward by the French Senate report was precisely an age-verification mechanism to prevent children accessing obscene material.

Last year an RedC poll found that 71pc of Irish citizens believe pornography is causing serious harm to society and 81pc of young people believe porn leads to more demands for violent sex.

Ireland should follow France and adopt a similar procedure to keep children away from porn websites.

---

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

Il mistero della luce in Newman

 

“Guidami, Luce Gentile, attraverso il buio che mi circonda, guidami Tu! La notte è oscura e sono lontano da casa, guidami Tu! Sostieni i miei piedi: io non chiedo di vedere, mi basta un passo solo.” Così inizia “Lead, Kindly Light”, la poesia più conosciuta di San John Henry Newman. Composta nel 1833 al ritorno da un drammatico viaggio in Sicilia, esprime un senso di fiducioso abbandono verso Colui che conduce le nostre sorti personali e del mondo.

Newman, poco più che trentenne, con due amici aveva intrapreso un lungo tour del Mediterraneo, come consuetudine dei gentiluomini inglesi del tempo.

Passando per Cadice e Gibilterra, avevano poi visitato Algeri, Malta, alcune isole della Grecia, la Sicilia e quindi Napoli e Roma. Dopo aver trascorso oltre un mese a Roma, Newman decise di tornare nuovamente in Sicilia, questa volta senza i suoi compagni di viaggio inglesi.

Nell’entroterra siciliano venne colto dalla febbre tifoidea, rischiando di spirare lontano dai suoi cari, solo in terra straniera. Nei momenti più drammatici del delirio ripeteva a chi l’accompagnava: “Non morirò. Non ho peccato contro la luce”, riferendosi al peccato all’ostinazione intellettuale, alla chiusura nei confronti della verità.

Questa certezza di innocenza si univa alla convinzione che Dio serbava per lui una missione da compiere in Inghilterra e pertanto l’avrebbe risparmiato dalla morte.

Sulla nave, di ritorno dalla Sicilia, Newman compose diversi poemi, tra i quali “Lead, Kindly Light” che fa riferimento anche alla malattia recente e allo scampato pericolo di morte.

Dopo l’invocazione iniziale, la lirica si rivolge al passato e poi al futuro: “Non sono mai stato così, né ho pregato che Tu mi guidassi, mi piaceva scegliere e vedere il sentiero ma ora guidami Tu!  … La tua forza mi ha benedetto così a lungo, sicuramente mi condurrà oltre lande e paludi, oltre rupi e torrenti, finché la notte è trascorsa. …”.

La crisi siciliana assunse un significato religioso per il giovane prelato anglicano, fu un momento di passaggio e di vocazione.

Come Newman stesso ricorda nella sua autobiografia, altri versi scritti durante la traversata del Mediterraneo riprendono il tema della luce che ci guida, sempre in connessione con la ricerca della verità.

“Quando considero il corso passato, vedo stagioni in cui il Raggio Interiore risplendette con più chiarezza, o guidò una nuova via. La verità, in più ricco scenario e più nobile ampiezza, fu data perché l’occhio potesse spaziare ed i piedi trovare strada.” (Discipline)

Tornato in Inghilterra, Newman realizzerà che la sua missione consisteva nel riscoprire le fonti spirituali e teologiche della tradizione anglicana. Divenne uno dei leader dei Trattariani, o Movimento di Oxford, fino a quando, una diecina d’anni dopo, questa ricerca lo porterà a riconoscere nella Chiesa Cattolica la fede professata dai cristiani sin dalle origini.

“I Padri mi fecero cattolico”, scrisse più tardi a Pusey, il professore di ebraico ad Oxford che lo aveva coinvolto in un’ambiziosa opera di traduzione dei Padri della Chiesa, in cinquanta volumi. E proprio traducendo Sant’Atanasio, Newman ritrovò il tema di Dio Padre che è luce splendente nel Figlio inseparabilmente, tema utilizzato per contrastare l’eresia ariana che negava la divinità di Cristo.

La conversione di Newman fu il compimento di un lungo percorso che ebbe nella purificazione siciliana un momento fondamentale. “La notte è oscura e sono lontano da casa, guidami Tu!”, scriveva allora. Quella casa non erano solo gli affetti distanti. Inconsapevolmente, la casa che l’attendeva era la Chiesa Cattolica.

Essere condotti dalla Luce è un’immagine che torna in molti dei suoi sermoni e preghiere, sia del periodo anglicano che cattolico.

Una preghiera composta da Newman porta proprio il titolo “Per la Luce della Verità” e recita: “O mio Dio, confesso che Tu puoi illuminare le mie tenebre. Confesso che solo Tu lo puoi. Vorrei che la mia oscurità venga illuminata. Non so se Tu lo vorrai. Tuttavia, il fatto che tu possa e che io lo desideri mi bastano per chiedere quello che tu almeno non mi hai proibito di domandare. Qui prometto che attraverso la Tua grazia, che imploro, abbraccerò ciò che riterrò per certo essere la verità. E con la Tua grazia, mi guarderò da ogni inganno che possa portarmi a scegliere ciò che vorrebbe la natura, e non ciò che è approvato dalla ragione”.

L’assenso alla verità richiede l’approvazione della ragione da parte umana ma anche l’illuminazione divina, senza la quale saremmo persi nelle tenebre. In questa dinamica conoscitiva Newman inserisce l’implorazione di chi osa domandare, fiduciosamente, di poter uscire dal buio.

Il legame tra luce e verità accompagnerà Newman fino alla fine della sua vita ed anche oltre. L’epitaffio, in latino, che egli volle per la sua tomba, recita “Dalle ombre e dagli spettri alla verità” (Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.) Solo con la morte la Luce finisce di guidarci, per essere quindi contemplata senza veli in tutto il suo splendore.

Il Timone, gennaio 2023.

A new organ donor bill is ethically questionable

If a proposed new law is passed, after you die your organs can be removed from your body for medical purposes unless you expressly say beforehand that you do not want this to happen. Consent is otherwise assumed. As usual, the law is going through the various parliamentary stages without proper debate, even though the proposal is ethically questionable. An Organ Donor Register, instead, should be established.

The proposed law is called the ‘Human Tissue 2022 Bill’. It covers issues such as the donation and transplantation of organs from deceased persons.

At present, an opt-in system exists. This means that only those who have expressly declared their intention to donate organs after they die will have them removed from their bodies, and even then only with the final approval of the family.

The new regime will mean consent is assumed, although final authorisation from a designated family member will still be needed.

The proposed regime is motivated by the good intention of addressing the problem of a shortage of organs for transplant in Ireland, but it is still ethically questionable as donation should arise only from an informed and deliberate decision on a person’s part.

Presumed consent is based instead on the assumption that we are all aware that our organs are available for transplantation upon death and we are happy with that. But what is this assumption really based on?

The HSE’s own consent policy says: “Consent involves a process of communication about the proposed intervention in which the person has received sufficient information to enable them to understand the nature, potential risks and benefits of the proposed intervention”.

It is very unlikely that the new system of presumed consent will meet these criteria.

To make the new system more ethical, patients should be explicitly asked to express their opinion on the matter when attending a hospital or their GP. This will prompt awareness and provoke conversation about donation, which must remain a choice freely and explicitly made and not assumed. Taking without asking is not giving.

As suggested by the Irish Kidney Association, there should be an Organ Donor Register, where all wishes – to opt in or out – are explicitly recorded. “Knowing that a loved one had proactively recorded their wish to be an organ donor makes the family decision to consent a much easier proposition”, a representative of the Irish Kidney Association told the Oireachtas. 

What is positive in this new Bill is that it is not inspired by a principle of absolute bodily autonomy of the patients, but it requires the involvement of their families, who could even overrule the decision of the deceased and veto the donation.

There are many reasons why the ultimate word should be with the families rather than with the individual.

While it is important to honour the wish of the deceased, we need to consider that personal decisions affect others, particularly the family. Some cultures place special importance on respecting the integrity of the body after death. Moreover, when organ donation happens against the wish of the family, they might refuse to cooperate, or their discontent could also affect the work of the health-care staff.

A proper ethical system in this area should follow two basic principles: explicit (not presumed) consent from the individual, and approval from the family following the death of the person. The second principle is still followed, but not the first and more important one. 

---

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

Biotestamento: poche richieste, un "radicale" insuccesso

A 5 anni dall'introduzione solo lo 0,4% degli italiani ha depositato le Dat (Disposizioni anticipate di trattamento). L'Associazione Luca Coscioni non si arrende ai fatti e affina le armi della propaganda per convincere il restante 99,6% di italiani che, evidentemente, non vogliono morire ma farsi curare.

Continua qui.

Green Day- Carpe Diem