Law Reform Commission to review abortion ban

The Irish Law Reform Commission plans to study the legal situation arising out of Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion, stated the Chairman, Mr. Justice Ronan Keane, November 17, 1991, in an address to a criminal law conference.

Mr. Justice Keane said that the Commission would soon begin work on proposals for re-drafting the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1861. One of the problems he sees facing the Commission is the wording of the Pro-life Amendment of 1983, which guarantees the right-to-life of the unborn, but which also states that “due regard” must be given to the right-to-life of the mother.

The Commission foresees situations in which a conflict may arise between the rights of the mother and those of the unborn baby. No such conflict ahs arisen up to now, Mr. Ronan stated, but the Commission feels there must be “a statutory definition of the circumstances in which a pregnancy can be terminated” in the interest of protecting the mother’s rights.

This was necessary, he said, because there may be cases where a mother’s life is at risk and without legislation, a “termination” might not be allowed.

Embryo research

Mr. Ronan discussed another aspect of the issue which, perhaps, shows more clearly what his motives are.

The use of the word “unborn” in the Constitution, he said, creates problems in the area or reproductive technology such as embryo research and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The task of the Commission was to prepare proposals for legislation which would permit progress compatible with the Constitution, he explained.

Protestant leaders act against abortion

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) under the leadership of the Rev. Ian Paisley has called for an end to the abortion information service provided by the Association of Citizens Advice Bureaus in Northern Ireland.

A spokesperson for the DUP said they were “appalled to discover that abortion advice is available” in private at these bureaus.

The DUP has always steadfastly rejected every effort by the British government to extend the abortion law to Northern Ireland. In recent months, it has also led the campaign to prevent the Brooke’s Clinics, a private enterprise network of “counseling” agencies, from expanding into Northern Ireland.

Despite this solid Protestant opposition in Northern Ireland, the pro-abortion lobby in the Republic of Ireland continues to maintain that ‘we can never hope for unity with the Protestant north while our constitution imposes its Catholic ban on abortion’!

Comment

As I write there is a public affairs program on TV. The show, from Radio Telefís Eireann or RTE (the national network), is at this moment dealing with the abortion issue – particularly with the “great tragedy” of Irish women having to go to England for abortions.

The hostess of the show leaves us in no doubt about her feelings.

She believes that this is a national disgrace. The hostess introduces us to a woman from one of the Dublin agencies recently in trouble with the law over its abortion referral service.

The counselor wrings her hands as she describes her pitiful clients who come to her office pleading for information.

She deplores the fact that, because she is prevented by the law from giving them the information they need, some women leave it too late before going to England to search for an abortion clinic, others rush off too soon, and either have to return home to wait until the proper time, or have to stay in expensive accommodation in London or Liverpool while they wait. Still others rush off without taking a pregnancy test, an embarrassment for themselves and for the women of Ireland.

Set pattern

We get such programs as this at regular intervals on radio and TV. They follow what seems to be a set pattern: ‘the pathetic young women’ trying to get an abortion; the ‘frustrated’ referral agency official; and finally the token pro-life representative, seated under harsh lighting and bombarded with questions by a stern-faced female broadcaster.

The pro-lifer is there, of course, to ensure that RTE can assert its impartiality!

The media gurus always stress two points:

•    Ireland heartlessly, shamelessly, and worst of all, smugly, exports its abortion problem to England.
•    Ireland is the laughing-stock of the whole world because of its refusal to ‘grow up’ and overcome its ‘immature hang-up’ about abortion and sexual liberation.

The public is still opposed to abortion, but rather from a lingering religious tradition against such things than from any well-informed understanding of the issue.

True, during the campaign leading up to the 1983 pro-life constitutional referendum, there was a great deal of information given out by the Irish pro-life movement; people understood the issue at the time. But in the succeeding years the pro-life movement has been allowed to disintegrate. Thousands of young people have left school, and reached voting age, knowing nothing of early human development or what abortion involves.

Young people

The interminable media ridicule is having its effect on uninformed young people.

At its recent annual convention, the youth section of Fianna Fail, the majority party in the Coalition Government, passed motions calling for “immediate liberalization of all legislation on family planning.”

Also recently, the National Youth Council of Ireland, including such groups as the Catholic Youth Council and the Catholic Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, passed a motion supporting “women’s rights to information on all pregnancy options, including abortion.”

Since then one Catholic youth group has threatened to pull out of the National council, and another group has said that, really, they are not in favor of abortion – they are only asking for freedom of speech and the right to receive information.

The motions passed by these youth organizations, and the campaign by student unions, including the union at Maynooth, the national seminary, for the right to publish information about the availability of abortion ‘clinics’, make it evident that there is an urgent need for widespread, intensive, pro-life educational work.

Yet none of the existing pro-life organizations seems to be aware of the urgency.

Pro-life is feeble

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) is totally involved with its task of defending the Constitution in the courts – also urgent and necessary.

Responsible Society monitors the media, the legislature and the European government organs, and publishes a report every three months. The report is informative, but there is no follow-up and no organization to act on the information published. Indeed, much of the information is already outdated, overtaken by events by the time it is published.

There are two organizations, Life and Cura, doing the kind of work done by Birthright in Canada, and Pro-life/Rescue is concentrating on the Rescue side of its mandate. Since it is the newest group, less than a year old, perhaps it may yet take up the urgent educational task, but its present leadership sees rescue as a far more important task.

Strategy failing

In military terms, then, all the groups could be said to be fighting a rear-guard action, and the fate of all rear-guards is continual retreat.

As youth continue to be lost to the pro-life movement in Ireland for lack of determined educational work, those who could do such work became fewer each year.

If my pessimism shows, it is because at a meeting of pro-life activists from all parts of the country a couple of weeks ago to counter the assertion that rescue is more important than educational work, I asked if anybody present could tell me at what stages in a pregnancy fetal heartbeat and brainwave activity can be detected.

Believe it or not, nobody knew!

And just a few weeks earlier our bishops said it was “inappropriate” to permit an American bishop to speak publicly about abortion.

Parliament

Dáil Eireann Parliament has been a rowdy scene of late.

Scandals in semi-state industries and financial scandals have given the opposition plenty of ammunition to harass the Government. A group of Cabinet ministers, embarrassed by their leader’s unconvincing defense against accusations of involvement, tried unsuccessfully to oust him. Having failed, they have lost their Ministries to others who are less satisfactory from the pro-life point of view.

One of them, Mary O’Rourke, the new Health Minister, is determined to build a reputation as a liberal and a progressive. She is already trying to rescue the almost discredited ‘condoms for kids’ bill. The only thing that gives us some hope is that the Government is so wobbly we believe it is almost powerless and must soon collapse.

European Community

Political journalist Emily O’Reilly, writing in the Irish Press (Nov. 23), said:

“Under present laws the E.C. recognizes abortion as a ‘health service’, nothing more. The Government’s fear is that the Irish constitutional ban on abortion could be overruled, and a directive given that Irish women should be permitted to avail of the same rights to contraception and abortion as their European mainland sisters.”

The Irish Foreign Minister will be seeking a special protocol, or an exclusion clause on abortion for Ireland in the new treaty. The other European countries, almost all of which permit abortion, are not likely to take kindly to that demand.

At a time when the attention of the Irish people is focused on the ongoing squabbles in Dáil Eireann, we hope our representatives in the European Parliament stand fast.

These are dangerous times.

Peter Hopkins is The Interim’s correspondent in Ireland. He lives in Advigoole, Kiltimash, Co. Mayo.