Taking a stand on termination doesn’t make Loose-lips Lucinda a heroine
The ‘maverick’ Junior Minister has shied away from opposing devastating cuts, writes Eilis O’hanlon
PEOPLE SAY they want politicians with courage and conviction, who put principle before career — until they get them. Then they’re not so sure. For example, Lucinda Creighton has been lambasted for the past two years for kowtowing to an economic programme which makes Scrooge look positively benevolent. Last week, she finally broke ranks with her government colleagues. And what did she get? Even more abuse from some of the very people who’d previously called on TDs to do just that.
Lucinda’s problem is that she chose to make a stand on abortion rather than the Budget. Throwing her toys out of the pram on child benefit would’ve garnered her some brownie points, whereas doing it because of plans to finally legislate for terminations in cases where a woman threatens suicide is regarded as embarrassing at best. Especially as she can’t win. If the Taoiseach has to lose the European Affairs minister as a price for keeping the Labour Party on board the Austerity Express, then lost she will be. A few defections here and there won’t make much difference to a coalition which is already so huge it has stamped out all hope of proper accountability by the Dail.
So is Lucinda a modern political hero for declaring that she will “not support any regime that would introduce liberalised abortion or abortion on demand”, however much her own leader backtracks on his own promises on the issue?
It would be lovely to think so, just as it would be nice to believe in Santa. But the fact that Lucinda Creighton is willing to take a stand on this issue simply draws attention to the fact that neither she nor the other deputies unhappy about the forthcoming legislation have been willing to do the same over any of the other multiplicity of bad decisions made by this Government since taking office.
Now, economics is complicated, and abortion, her supporters will no doubt declare, is simple. If terminations are legislated for in Ireland, then babies will die. The connection between those two actions is clear. It’s not so easy to map out a causal link between budgetary measures taken behind closed doors and the despair that’s out there. But just because ministers lack sufficient imagination to see how economic decisions can be every bit as devastating to those affected as a policy shift on abortion, is no defence. People have died because of decisions rubberstamped in Leinster House, taking their lives in despair as those lives unravelled. Many more will die in years to come as the stress takes its toll on weary bodies and wearier souls.
Yet Lucinda et al stayed quite happily inside the tent throughout, trooping through the lobbies to snatch thousands of homecare hours away from vulnerable old people, or enforcing a property tax which the Taoiseach has been equally vehement about opposing in the past, or supporting each and every one of the other “death by a thousand cuts” measures which were shoved through the Dail by force of numbers.
It’s the same when liberal Western opinion tries to convince itself that nice President Obama is so much more acceptable than nasty President Bush because, whilst George W sent troops overseas, Barack just sends unmanned drones, dropping bombs on unseen targets from a great height. We don’t get to see the damage done, so it
‘Government has sent out economic drones across Ireland, exploding in the middle of people’s lives’
doesn’t count, though the effect on victims is no less real. This Government’s tactic has been to send out economic drones across Ireland, exploding indiscriminately in the middle of people’s lives, but because ministers are able to turn their eyes away from the carnage, they can pretend they’re not really to blame, or kid themselves that it wouldn’t make any difference even if they did dissent because it’s going to happen anyway. Well, legalised abortion is going to happen anyway, but that hasn’t stopped up to 20 Fine Gael TDs preparing to defy the leadership in the New Year. Nor does simpering about the futility of one person making a stand on the economy square with the Government’s apparent worry that, if she does decide to oppose the new legislation on abortion, Lucinda could well be a “lynchpin” around which opposition could grow.
Of course, most of them will probably fall into line, their silence bought with whatever safeguards, caveats and other varieties of fudge the Taoiseach manages to slip into the Bill at the last minute. But even if every single one of them did suddenly grow a pair and stood up for what they believe rather than their careers and pensions, it still sticks in the craw that they suddenly expect to be commended as independentminded mavericks when they’re still going along with equally life-destroying policies every day. Too little too late is just a different kind of opportunism.