An act of tolerance or a denial of life?
Sir — Gene Kerrigan (Soapbox, Sunday Independent, December 24) refers to the insertion of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, firstly as “never a religious position but an explicitly political stroke” but further in his article states that the amendment is “a constitutional directive based as a religious edict, contrived as a political stroke”. Now I wonder which he is claiming it is — a religious edict or a political stroke.
I suppose it is good that he is recognising that the right to life is a religious position but, while I am very proud of my Catholic faith and the fact that the Church has consistently upheld that right, despite all the pressure to do otherwise, I contend that many who have no religion in no way support abortion, the deliberate killing of the baby. It may be of interest for Gene Kerrigan to know that despite his claiming that “there wasn’t a snowball’s chance that would change” (abortion being illegal here), it was blindingly obvious that it would because of the Roe v Wade case in the US by which abortion was legalised there through the court.
A most interesting fact is that there actually was no abortion involved in the case and one of those named was not aware of the case, although she later became involved in promoting abortion before turning aside from that position and promoting pro-life.
Mr Kerrigan makes the very interesting comment that “the Catholic mainstream, and its sense of tolerance, has insisted on its right to trust its own sense of right and wrong, rather than have its beliefs handed down wholesale”.
Now, in many cases, people deciding for themselves what is right and what is wrong may not have very serious consequences, but in the case of abortion we are talking of the deliberate taking of the life of a baby in the womb. How can that be referred to as an act of tolerance when it involves denial of the most basic right of all, the right to life? Mr Kerrigan also refers to “the cruelty in the treatment of women whose babies will never be born to live” without any reference to the cruelty involved in abortion, never mind the fact that no one can with certainty confirm when anyone will die. What about wrong diagnoses and the fact that many babies live much longer than predicted.
“Depriving every woman in the country of the right to decide that very matter herself (abortion)” takes no account of the fact that most abortions are carried out on baby girls. So much for showing concern for the rights of women.
Finally, Mr Kerrigan, despite all the evidence to the contrary, once again claims that the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar was caused because she was refused an abortion. He can get a detailed account of this misconception from his colleague Eilis O’Hanlon’s article (Sunday Independent, October 22) and Dr Alistair McFarlane’s letter (Sunday Independent, November 5) confirming the positive effects the Eighth Amendment has had and that, if Ms Halappanavar had had an abortion, the infection would have still been present.
I wonder how many times it has to be pointed out that three independent inquests confirmed that she died from sepsis and dreadful medical neglect, before it will be accepted as such and factually reported on.
Women surely deserve better than being told that the answer to a crisis pregnancy is the killing of their babies. Compassion and proper respect for all life, no matter how limited or short, demands this. Mary Stewart (Mrs),
Donegal Town