Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told his Irish counterpart that abortion in Ireland should be a considered a “human right”.
Mr Trudeau and Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Taoiseach, addressed the subject at a joint press conference during the Irish leader’s three-day visit to Canada.
Mr Varadkar, who is seeking to hold a referendum next year on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the constitution, which protects the right to life of the unborn child, said: “We discussed the issue of abortion, which I know is an important issue for a lot of campaigners for women’s rights in Canada.”
He said he had mentioned his plans to hold a referendum next year so that the “people of Ireland” can “remove our constitutional ban on abortion, should they wish to do so.”
Asked whether he had any advice for Mr Varadkar, Mr Trudeau said that “reproductive rights” were a fundamental human right.
“On the issue of reproductive rights, I shared our perspective that reproductive rights for women are integral to women’s rights in general and women’s rights are human rights, and I encouraged him to look at it as a question of fundamental rights for women and we had a good discussion on that,” the Canadian prime minister said.
Canada has one of the laxest abortion regimes in the world, with women able to terminate their pregnancies at any stage up to birth for any reason.
Mr Trudeau’s comments are the latest case of foreign intervention in Ireland’s abortion debate. Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council said Ireland’s abortion laws violated human rights.
Catholic marriages at lowest level in Scotland since 1941
A Scottish Church official has called for radical action to reverse a long decline in the number of Catholic marriages.
Last year there were just 1,346 Catholic marriages in Scotland, compared to 7,066 in 1970. It was the lowest number in the country since 1941.
Mgr Peter Magee, head of the Scottish Catholic Interdiocesan Tribunal, which rules on annulments, called for a Catholic marriage association to be set up and a Sunday each year to be set aside to promote marriage.
He told the Scottish Catholic Observer: “We need more systematic and intensified preaching and catechesis on marriage.” This, he said, was about not just homilies but teaching “in Catholic schools and in the preparation of couples for marriage”.
A Catholic marriage association, he said, could “demythologise the lies which are thrown at us concerning love, sex, relationships” thanks to a “self-centred hedonism which has infected and corrupted our laws”.
A Sunday dedicated to marriage, Mgr Magee said, would be a chance to celebrate matrimony in parishes and for the Church “to issue a message on marriage to the nation”.
BPAS chief grilled by TV panel
Ann Furedi, chief executive of abortion provider BPAS, appeared to shock the panel of ITV’s Loose Women last week by suggesting the law should allow sex-selective abortion.
She said: “My view is it should always be down to the woman to make the decision for herself.” She argued abortion should be seen as a back-up to contraception. Gloria Hunniford said such an idea sent out a “shocking message”.
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