The Irish Council for Bioethics was established in 2002 as an independent, autonomous body to consider the ethical issues raised by developments in science and medicine.
Women in the Irish Republic will have to be given the means to access legal abortions there if their lives are at risk, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in a landmark judgment. The ruling, by the grand chamber of the Strasbourg court, can not be appealed and will require Ireland to legislate or otherwise set up a framework to decide whether there is a “real and substantial risk” to a woman’s life if she goes ahead with her pregnancy. The court held that the human rights of a woman with a rare cancer were violated when she was obliged to travel to the United Kingdom for an abortion and awarded her €15 000 (£12 700; $19 800) in compensation.
With surrogacy costing up to $70,000 in the US compared to only $12,000 in India, many Western women are outsourcing pregnancy abroad. It's a multi-million dollar industry that sees rural Indians receive the equivalent of 10 years' salary. Over the course of nine months, we follow the lives of two women, who in each other seek solutions to the problems of poverty and infertility, and explore whether it's a relationship that is exploitative or mutually beneficial.
The high cost of surrogacy in Europe and the US means many Western women are outsourcing pregnancy abroad. Carolina, from Ireland, travelled to India to pay Sonal to carry her baby. The World Service's Your World followed the two women as they came to terms with the emotional costs of the surrogacy.
The High Court has granted a Dublin maternity hospital orders allowing it to perform, if required, an emergency blood transfusion to the unborn child of a Jehovah's Witnesses couple who is at risk of being delivered prematurely. Today the court heard the child's mother, who is approximately 26 weeks pregnant, presented with a spontaneous premature ruptured membrane. Doctors at the hospital treating the woman, who cannot be identified by order of the court, say they can't predict exactly when the child will be delivered but that the likelihood of a premature birth is high. They claim in the event the child is born in the next four to five weeks the infant "most likely will require a transfusion of blood or blood related products in order to safeguard the child's life and prevent it from sustaining serious injury." However the parents, for religious reasons, have refused to give their consent to allow the hospital administer a transfusion to the child.
AT LEAST 15 children born through surrogacy to Irish couples abroad are caught in a legal limbo which has left them either stateless or unable to get an Irish passport. This is despite the recommendations of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction – established more than a decade ago – which urged the Government to regulate surrogacy. Meanwhile, many parents say delays in resolving their children’s legal status is a source of ongoing stress and is likely to involve expensive legal action. One Dublin couple in their 30s, who have been stranded abroad in India for several weeks, say they are “tearing their hair out” waiting to have their child’s status regularised. “We are tired and angry with the Irish authorities,” said one of the parents, who declined to be named.
MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter is to publish official guidelines next month to assist parents who plan to have children via surrogate mothers abroad in a move aimed at preventing babies ending up in “legal limbo”. However, he was unable to say when long-promised legislation for the wider area of assisted human reproduction would be published. Mr Shatter told The Irish Times that pressure on the Government in drawing up legal changes linked to the EU-IMF bailout meant there was no guarantee of when legislation would be ready. He said a “consultative process” has begun between officials in the various Government departments and hoped significant progress would be made next year. His comments come at a time of growing concern for the welfare of 15 children born by surrogacy abroad who are now either stateless or unable to get passports.
This document is intended to provide guidance as to the principles that will be applied by the Irish authorities when considering (i) whether a child is an Irish citizen, and (ii) who the child's legal parents and guardians are, for the purposes of dealing with applications for travel documents on behalf of children born outside the State as a result of surrogacy arrangements.