To protect the future of women’s healthcare, the Church must give us real evidence that the new facility will operate independently

In April 2016, a media storm surrounded the proposed new National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street, with specific regard to its links to St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. In this abridged extract from his new book, In the Shadow of the Eighth: My 40 Years Working for Women’s Health in Ireland, Peter Boylan offers his account of what went on behind the scenes

No maternity hospital in the world on land owned by the Church permits procedures forbidden by Catholic teaching. The contrary assurances ring utterly hollow