Women should be allowed to make up their own minds

COMMENT

If you believe that the foetus in the womb is every bit as important as a mature woman, then you must oppose abortion. If you believe that the life that has its origins in conception has the same human rights – from the moment of conception – as the baby that is born, you will also fight tooth and nail to protect that life.
But really, do that many people actually believe all that? Of course life begins at conception but surely nobody in their right senses believes that a day-old foetus has an equal right to life as has a grown adult.

If that were the case then surely there would be an outright ban on the morning-after pill.
I cannot understand why the Pro-Life Movement or Youth Defence or indeed the Catholic Church do not campaign to have the sale of that pill stopped.

Neither do I understand why they do not insist that every woman of child-bearing age is not stopped as she is leaving this country and questioned as to whether she is pregnant of not.
If abortion is murder, as they claim it is, in Ireland, surely it is also murder in Belfast or in England or anywhere outside this jurisdiction.

They should insist that any woman who is pregnant leaving Ireland is also pregnant or is accompanied by a new-born child on her return.
I accept that the vast majority of pro-life people are very sincere but I cannot accept that they are entitled to impose their beliefs on those who do not agree with them. Several opinion polls recently have shown that a large majority of the Irish people now favour abortion in certain limited circumstances, such as in cases of rape, incest or when the foetus has no chance of survival outside the womb.

They also favour abortion when the health of the mother might be at risk and, of course, they are in favour of abortion when the life of the mother is in danger, even if the danger is from the threat of suicide.
Those are all reasonable grounds for abortion. All the new Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill does is to allow for an abortion when the mother’s life is at risk from the threat of suicide.

It will not, for example, allow a girl who is pregnant after being raped by a gang, to have that pregnancy terminated. She will be forced to carry that child in her womb, despite her trauma, until the child is born naturally.
If she aborts that child at any stage, she will be liable to spend 14 years in jail, as will anybody else who assists her in having that abortion.

That’s the situation as it stands now and as it will stand when the new Bill becomes law. Is that fair or just? It might be Catholic but it certainly is not Christian.
The pro-life campaign has been trying to give the impression that the new Bill is going to open the floodgates and that it will lead to abortion on demand. It will not. Polls have also shown that the Irish people are opposed to abortion on demand and while that situation exists, no Government here will attempt to go against that will.

Anyway, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill is not going to make a blind bit of difference to the vast majority of women in unwanted pregnancy situations. They will continue to travel to England to have their abortions. Pity those who cannot afford to pay for the Ryanair ticket.

While I understand the anxiety of those who opposed the Bill, I found it hard to stomach some of the vitriolic attacks on people like the Taoiseach. I disagree a lot with Enda Kenny but basically he is a decent man. He is not a child-killer and he has nothing in common with Hitler or with Herod, as some pro-lifers claim.

There are a lot of things to be said against the Government’s handling of the economy but, unlike previous governments, they have faced up to a situation they inherited following the Supreme Court decision all those years ago in relation to the X case.
Pro-life members have also accused people like myself of promoting abortion on demand. That is a lie. There are certainly some people who are looking for abortion on demand. But I can only speak for myself.

I am in favour of allowing the mother to have a choice in certain circumstances, such as rape or incest. I am certainly not in favour of forcing her, one way or the other, either to have an abortion or to carry the foetus to full term. She should be allowed to make up her own mind. Is that too much to ask?

There is one other thing. I don’t know how many people attended the recent pro-life rally in Dublin but I do know that the organisers of such rallies always exaggerate the attendance. They believe the gardaí and the press go out of their way to downgrade the numbers attending.

I think the opposite is the truth. I have gone out of my way on occasions to try to accurately count the number of people marching in protest against some issue or other. I would always throw in an extra few thousand in case I had missed some in my count.
However, my figures, which I would claim to be closer to the true figures, were always only a fraction of what they organisers claimed were present.