Ireland must listen to the innocent voices of our children
■ Fiona Ness’s article on the difficulties involved in explaining the abortion referendum to children (‘I’d hoped not to – but here’s how I explained the abortion referendum posters to my children’,
Irish Independent, April 17), made for thought-provoking reading.
What caught my attention particularly was the instinctive, unfiltered opinions expressed to her on the subject by her own two young children.
When she explained to her seven-year-old that the “way of getting a baby out” of a woman’s body involves the death of the baby, her daughter exclaimed, “Awww, sad.”
Her nine-year-old said “dolefully”: “I think everyone deserves a chance at life.”
I think it’s fair to say these untutored, simple responses, in all their clarity and certainty, are representative of what we would expect would be the opinions of all children on the subject.
After all, isn’t it the case that only after being subjected to a long process of conditioning, programming and “education” that children sometimes grow into adults who hold very different opinions? And isn’t this true for all of us, both children and adults?
Don’t we all first understand instinctively, naturally that abortion is wrong? No one, child or adult, whenever they first consider the subject starts out believing abortion is right. How then can it ever be right?
I hope we listen to our children’s voices, the last preserve of our collective moral sanity, at this vital time in our history.
Michael O’Driscoll Skehard Road, Co Cork