Sex abuse of young women seems to be on the increase

 

Sexual abuse and harassment seem to be on the increase in Ireland, particularly among young women. This is also certainly contrary to the expectation that as Ireland becomes more ‘open’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘liberal’, levels of sexual abuse would decline. A new major survey by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has revealed that 21pc of women say they have experienced ‘non-consensual sexual intercourse’ in their lifetime so far, and 52pc of them report they have experienced ‘sexual violence’.

The survey defines ‘sexual violence’ very broadly as “a range of non-consensual experiences, from non-contact experiences to non-consensual sexual intercourse”.

According to the survey, the proportion of adults who have experienced ‘sexual violence’ in their lifetime was 40pc, with higher levels for women (52pc) compared with men (28pc). This means that almost half of the population has been affected by what the survey defines as ‘sexual violence’ at some point in their lives.

The CSO survey also found that four times more women (21pc) than men (5pc) reported what the survey calls ‘non-consensual sexual intercourse’. This is defined as “where the person was coerced, threatened or forced into having sex”.

Additionally, one in ten women experienced non-consensual sexual intercourse as an adult when they were unable to give consent because they were asleep, passed out or under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.

The survey found that ‘sexual violence’ prevalence rates vary greatly by age, with younger people reporting higher levels than older persons. For example, young women (aged 18-24) reported the highest levels of ‘sexual violence’ in their lifetime to date at 65pc. This figure is almost half (35pc) for those aged 65 and over. The discrepancy is especially striking given that the older women have seen far more life.

22pc of men and women aged 18-24 have experienced ‘sexual violence’ both as an adult and as a child, compared with 8pc of those aged 65 and over.

Women aged 25-34 are four times (29pc) more likely to have experienced non-consensual sexual intercourse as an adult than those aged 65 and over (7pc). They also reported the highest prevalence of unwanted sexual intercourse as a child at 10pc, compared with 6pc of women aged 65 and over.

This indicates that the younger generation has experienced, both as children and as young adults, more sexual violence than the older generations.

Commenting on age differences, Dr. Clíona Sáidléar, Executive Director of the Rape Crisis Network Ireland told RTE that younger people may be better “able to name something” [as sex abuse] compared with older people but added, “the CSO would have been very carefully building their tools to try to control for that”. Another reason for the age variation, she added, “would be just the different and emerging forms of sexual violence. Digitally enabled sexual violence is a huge and emerging form of violence.”

The majority of adults (78pc) who experienced ‘sexual violence’ at least once in their lifetime knew the perpetrator, with very little difference between women (79pc) and men (75pc). This rate is lower for the older age cohort. `

Younger women (18-24) are twice more likely to have experienced non-partner sexual violence with a friend/acquaintance (34pc) than women aged 65 and over (18pc).

This suggests that sexual violence, particularly among younger generations, often happens within known relationships or social circles.

Finally, the CSO survey found that only half of adults (47pc) who experienced sexual violence in their lifetime told someone about it, with disclosure more likely if the incident involved a non-partner-only (55pc) than a partner-only (16pc). Women who experienced sexual violence in their lifetime were more likely to have told someone (53pc) compared with men (34pc). These findings highlight the importance of creating support systems for survivors of sexual abuse, assault and harassment, especially for those who may be hesitant to come forward.

Possiamo stare in pace

 La nostra epoca non è affatto post-cristiana. È “post” tutto: post-illuministica, post-risorgimentale, post-marxista, post-scientista, ma non post-cristiana. I miti e le ideologie sono tutti al tramonto. Nessuno può più illudersi. Ma Cristo è vivo, e il cristianesimo appare sempre più la sola alternativa all’assurdo. Certo, il regno dell’assurdo è vasto, ma tutto è accorgersi che è assurdo. Molti vivono senza scopo, ma sentono di vivere senza scopo. Perciò c’è molto accanimento contro la Chiesa – la sola che si ribella all’assurdità – ma c’è anche molta attenzione a quello che dice e quello che fa.

Il mondo assurdo non mi fa paura: è la controprova, giusta e necessaria, della verità della fede e della necessità di Cristo. Mi fanno paura gli uomini di Chiesa che non ritengono più importante distinguere tra il vero e il falso, e i cristiani (specialmente gli intellettuali cristiani) che ragionano in modo mondano.

Ma la Pasqua ci dice: il Signore ha vinto, e dunque possiamo stare in pace.

(Giacomo Biffi, Lettere a una carmelitana scalza, 1960-2013, Itaca)

Thoughts are clouds ... the shape of clouds varies with the angle from which they are approached. 

Lyotard

Abortion pill risks not being properly explained to women

 

Women are not being made fully aware of the risks that can be associated with abortion pills, a conference organised by Bios Centre in Britain has been told. Over the phone consultation adds more danger to their use. The same applies here in Ireland where 133 “adverse incidents” related to abortion have been reported by women to the State Claims Agency over the last five years, according to figures obtained by Peadar Toibin.

Abortion pills have become the most common method for terminating a pregnancy, particularly in the early stages of gestation.  In Ireland, women up to nine weeks pregnant usually take the abortion pills at home, following a consultation with a GP or a family planning clinic, either in-person, or by phone or video call.

However, the safety and the effectiveness of this method, particularly when used outside a hospital, has been questioned by Dr Greg Pike of the Bios Centre, who was addressing a conference this week organised by the Centre.

Is women’s choice really based on informed consent, he asked? Do they know and understand the danger of taking such pills?

“Women have been misled by abortion providers”, he said. They are not made fully aware of risk and the effectiveness of the abortive pills, Dr Pike claimed.

Citing research, he noted that 40pc of women who have taken those pills said they experienced more pain than expected. These figures raise questions about whether women are properly informed of these statistics before being prescribed the abortion poll.

Furthermore, the seminar was told, there has been no proper study conducted on the psychological effect of seeing the dead embryo following the abortion.

In Ireland, the HSE guidelines rather callously say: “You can decide how to dispose of the pregnancy remains. They can be flushed down the toilet, or wrapped in tissue and disposed of as you wish.”

This is how a Scottish woman who saw her little child expelled after an abortion pill-induced termination recalls the shocking experience: “In hindsight I wish I hadn’t looked but I did, and that was probably the most traumatic thing I’ve ever seen or done. I thought ‘what on earth?’”

The possible trauma associated with this dramatic experience needs to be properly investigated, the seminar heard.

Some studies found that the pills can fail up to 10pc of the time, with the pregnancy occasionally continuing, the fetus not being spontaneously expelled, or an additional dose of drugs being required.

When this happens at home, there is a higher likelihood that the drugs are not taken as recommended, resulting in higher rates of failure.

An investigation conducted in England has found that “1-in-17 women having an induced medical abortion are subsequently treated at an NHS hospital for complications arising from an incomplete abortion with retained products of conception.”

There are no data available for Ireland.

During the Covid emergency in March 2020, Simon Harris, who was then the Minister for Health, introduced remote consultation by phone or video call for women requesting abortions, also known as teleabortion.

Now that the emergency is ended, this provisional measure should be discontinued but it is likely that the ongoing review of the abortion services will keep it instead.

The HSE has admitted that it does not collect data about complications arising after an at-home abortion. It also recognised that women who have a remote consultation, on the phone or on video call, maybe be subject to coercion.

Dr Pike, who has studied coercion, noted that not all women go back to their doctor after receiving the pills. Others admitted not having used the drugs, and could even have passed them to other women. “There is an association of abortion and trafficking. We know that there is a strong pressure on women involved in trafficking to have an abortion. The tele-abortion model makes it easier for abusers to get hold of the drugs and force them on to women”, he pointed out.

All of these concerns suggest that remote consultation and the use of abortion pills outside of hospitals should be discontinued. The ongoing review of abortion in Ireland should take these issues into consideration.

Britain is now one of the most socially liberal countries in the world

Britain has been found to be one of the most socially liberal countries in the world, according to a recent study. The Policy Institute of King's College, London presented a report which showed that in the past 40 years, social attitudes in the country have changed significantly. Homosexuality, divorce, abortion, euthanasia, suicide, and prostitution are now considered more acceptable.

The study, which is based on the World Values Survey, a global social survey that has been running since 1981, records attitudes, beliefs, and values in different countries. The United Kingdom ranks among the most socially liberal countries in the world on all measures.

The report states that 47% of the British population believes that abortion is always justifiable, which places the country behind only Sweden (74%), Norway (62%), and France (49%). The support for abortion is considerably lower in the US (24%), Germany (29%), and Italy (23%). However, there are significant regional differences within the UK, with only 25% of respondents in Northern Ireland thinking that abortion is justifiable, while the percentage is almost double in Scotland (49%) and England (48%).

Likewise, regional differences emerged with regard to homosexuality. When asked about the morality of homosexuality, 49% of people in Northern Ireland think it is justifiable, while in England and Wales the percentage is 65%, and in Scotland, it is 64%. Only Sweden (81%), Norway (76%), and Germany (67%) have higher figures than the UK overall (65%).

The study also found that the most liberal countries in the world with regards to the moral permissibility of casual sex are Australia (48%), Spain (46%), Canada (45%), and the UK (41%). The moral justification of prostitution is the only measure for which the UK ranks fifth in the world, slightly lower than for other issues. "Only" 17% of respondents believe it is justified. This is still a remarkable increase since 1981 when only 7% of the UK population considered it acceptable. The countries where prostitution is more accepted are Australia (27%) and Germany (24%).

Interestingly, cheating on taxes is the only issue that Britons find less acceptable now than 40 years ago. The percentage of the British public who said it was justifiable decreased from 7% in 1981 to 1% in 2022.

The World Values Survey also registered significant differences not only between different countries but also between religious and non-religious respondents in the same country. For example, the percentage of British people who find casual sex acceptable is 53% among the non-religious and 27% among the religious. Only 35% of religious people would accept euthanasia, compared to 56% of non-religious people. However, the survey found no difference with regard to the death penalty.

Finally, the study revealed that the non-religious are also more likely to find it justifiable to avoid paying a fare on public transport and cheating on taxes, while the religious are slightly more sympathetic than non-religious people to those claiming benefits they are not entitled to

President Biden invokes the very Christian concept of dignity in address

 

When President Joe Biden addressed the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas yesterday, he mentioned the word ‘dignity’ no fewer than seven times, asking the assembled politicians to “Name me another country, in whatever their language is, that use the word ‘dignity’ as much as we Irish use the word ‘dignity’.”

In fact, what he did not say, but could have, is that the Irish Constitution was the first in the world, back in 1937, to explicitly mention that word, largely because it is a product of Catholic social teaching.

Three presidents before Biden addressed the Oireachtas, namely John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and both Reagan and Clinton invoked the concept of dignity.

There was no mention of the religion roots of this concept in Biden’s speech.

But in 1984, Reagan explicitly linked dignity to Christianity, saying that Ireland “gave the world the saints and scholars who preserved Western culture, the missionaries and soldiers who spoke of human dignity and freedom and put much of the spark to my own country’s quest for independence, and that of other nations.”

Bill Clinton, in his address to the Oireachtas in 1995, mentioned dignity in connection with our God-given abilities. He said: “We want for all of your children the right to grow up in an Ireland where this entire island gives every man and woman the right to live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities and gives people the right to live in equality, freedom and dignity.”

In his speech in Leinster House in 1963, John F Kennedy said: “No larger nation did more to keep Christianity and Western culture alive in their darkest centuries.”

While some countries introduced the concept of human dignity into their Constitution after the horrors of the Second World War, Ireland was the first to do so in 1937.

In invoking the Trinity, the Preamble proclaims that the Irish people adopt Bunreacht na hÉireann “so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured”.

Samuel Moyn, Professor of History at Yale University, who has studied the drafting of this important document, maintains that the insertion of the notion of dignity was inspired by Pope Pius XI and his encyclical letter Divini Redemptoris issued in the same weeks when the Preamble to the Constitution was written. (Prof. Moyn is not Catholic and is not defending a partisan view)

A previous draft of the Preamble mentioned not the “dignity and freedom of the individual” but “of the citizens”. Moyn notes that this is “an important revision since to restrict dignity to “citizens” might seem to ignore its natural foundations and thus its role in constraining the state.”

The concept of the dignity of the individual was promoted in the social teaching of the Church to defend the natural rights of human beings from the undue interference of the state. In March 1937, when the Preamble was written, Pope Pius XI wrote two encyclicals against the totalitarian state: Divini Redemptoris, against Communism, and Mit Brennender Sorge, in which he denounced Nazism because it “violates every human right and dignity”.

Soon after the World War II, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that mentions dignity twice in its preamble, then in its first article (“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”), and two more times later. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain, a Catholic convert, had a central role in the drafting of the Declaration. (See more here.)

The ultimate basis for human dignity is, of course, the belief that we are all made in the Image and Likeness of God, and are not chance products of a blind universe. Catholic social teaching says that dignity begins at conception and does not end until natural death.

It is a pity that Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, no longer believes that the concept of dignity begins in the womb. On the contrary, as his career has progressed, his support for the unborn has waned to the point of total non-existence.

A new card game for childen (AI generated)

Here's an idea for a new card game for children:


Title: "Critter Collectors"

Number of players: 2-4

Age range: 5-10 years

Objective: Collect as many critters as possible by using cards to lure them into your collection.

Setup: Shuffle the deck of cards and deal five cards to each player. Place the remaining cards face down in a draw pile.

Gameplay:

The player with the highest card (aces high) goes first. Play then proceeds clockwise.


On a player's turn, they can play one card from their hand. There are three types of cards:

Critter cards: These cards feature different cute critters such as butterflies, ladybugs, and snails. Each critter card has a number value between 1 and 5. When played, the critter joins the player's collection.


Lure cards: These cards have various types of food such as berries, flowers, and leaves. When played, the player can lure one critter from another player's collection into their own. The player must choose a critter with a number value equal to or less than the number on the lure card.


Action cards: These cards allow the player to take a special action such as drawing extra cards, swapping collections with another player, or forcing another player to discard a card.

Once a card is played, the player draws a new card from the draw pile.


The game ends when the draw pile runs out and a player has no more cards in their hand. The player with the most critters in their collection wins.

Variations:

For younger children, you can simplify the game by removing the action cards and only using the critter and lure cards.


For older children, you can add more complex action cards such as ones that allow players to steal critters from other players' collections or force other players to skip a turn.

I hope you and your children have fun playing "Critter Collectors"!

Married women account for only a small minority of abortions in England

The number of pregnancies ending in abortion in England and Wales reached a record high in 2021 of 26.5pc, according to a new report. In the case of married women, just 10.4pc of pregnancies ended in a termination, versus 35.8 pc among unmarried women, a difference of three and a half to one. Those figures from the Office of National Statistics demonstrate once again that marriage is the best friend of the unborn child.

A total of 824,983 babies were conceived in 2021 while the number of abortions amounted to 214,256, the highest ever, a very grim figure, equivalent to around 15,000 in Ireland.

The latest data also show that girls under 16 had the highest percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion at 59.8pc, while women aged 30-34 had the lowest percentage at 18.3pc. Those aged 30-34 also had the highest number of pregnancies. This is the age at which women are most likely to want to have children.

In the last ten years there has also been an increase in the number of women aged 35 and over who are becoming pregnant. This reflects the fact that women are delaying having babies until the opportunity to conceive at all is almost gone.

Pregnancy rates have instead decreased for all other age groups, which stands to reason if people who putting off having families for so long.

For the first time since record began, married women had a lower pregnancy rate than those outside marriage. Among unmarried women, there were 75.1 conceptions per 1,000 compared with 72.2 per 1,000 among married women. Ten years ago, the latter figure was much higher: 91.6 per 1,000. This means that fewer women are waiting until marriage to conceive children and, as a consequence, also the overall abortion rates have increased, together with the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion.

Unfortunately, British figures cannot be compared properly with Ireland. Unlike every other Western country, Ireland does not collect demographic data on women who have abortions. This was a deliberate omission when the Irish abortion legislation was written in 2018, something that the current review of the abortion laws should consider and change.

 

What is the easiest musical instrument to learn how to play? (AI generated)

I have asked two different AI programmes what is the easiest musical instrument to learn how to play. Here the responses:

The easiest musical instrument to learn how to play is subjective and can vary from person to person depending on their interests and abilities. However, here are a few instruments that are generally considered to be relatively easy to learn:

1. Ukulele: The ukulele has only four strings, which makes it easier to learn and play chords than a guitar. It's also a portable instrument, making it a great choice for beginners who want to take their practice on the go.

2. Keyboard: The keyboard or piano is a popular instrument that is relatively easy to learn. Its keys are laid out in a logical order, which makes it easier to understand music theory and learn to read sheet music.

3. Harmonica: The harmonica is a small, portable instrument that is easy to learn how to play basic melodies on. It's also relatively affordable, making it a great choice for beginners who want to experiment with different musical styles.

4. Recorder: The recorder is a simple wind instrument that is often taught in elementary schools. It has a small range, making it easy to learn simple melodies and practice breath control.

5. Hand drums: Hand drums, such as the djembe or bongos, are relatively easy to learn how to play basic rhythms on. They also offer a tactile, physical experience of making music that can be appealing to beginners.

Of course, learning any musical instrument takes time and practice, and what may be easy for one person may not be for another. Ultimately, the easiest instrument to learn is the one that you are most interested in and motivated to practice.

(OpenAI ChatGPT)

The easiest musical instrument to learn how to play is subjective and may vary depending on an individual's musical interests, experience, and skill level. However, some instruments are generally considered to be more accessible to beginners than others.

Here are a few instruments that are generally considered easy to learn:

1. Ukulele: The ukulele is a small stringed instrument with only four strings that are easy to press on and create chords with. It's widely regarded as one of the easiest instruments to learn, and there are plenty of online resources and tutorials available to get started.

2. Piano and Keyboard: Learning to play the piano or a keyboard can be relatively easy for some people, especially if they have some basic knowledge of music theory. With a little bit of practice, novices can play melodies and chords with both hands.

3. Drums and Percussion instruments: Playing percussion instruments, like a drum set, can be a great way to learn rhythm and timing. Learning percussion may potentially present a higher learning curve initially as there are multiple elements to coordinated in drumming sets, but such concerns may be offset by the rewarding feeling of learning how to create phrases and beats

Remember, learning an instrument requires patience, practice, and dedication, so even with a "beginner-friendly" instrument, one might need more time to master it fully.    

(Bearly.ai)

Cute passwords (AI generated)

Some passwords that may be considered "cute" or fun to remember:

1. Paws&Claws
2. Hug$4U
3. SmilingSun!
4. FlutterBy3
5. Rainb0wUnicorn
6. BouncyKangaroo#
7. C0zyBlanket
8. ChirpingBirdies@
9. WigglyPuppy$
10. FuzzyKitten1