You can’t have your cake and eat it, Mr Coveney
Up to now the prevailing wisdom surrounding the thorny issue of abortion decreed that it would be settled by the middle ground. But that vast frontier of moderate opinion that acts as a balmy bridge between the shrill triumphalism of the Repeal lobby and the moral absolutism of the so-called Right to Life brigade, has started to look a bit muddy.
Simon Coveney’s conscientious objections to the thoughtful ‘journey’ taken by Leo Varadkar, Health Minister Simon Harris and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin from Pro-life leanings to support for early-term abortion, shows how varying shades of opinion characterises an electoral pastureland that was perhaps optimistically regarded as homogenous and ripe for gentle persuasion.
On the face of it, the Tánaiste’s position represents a classic having-your-cakeand-eating-it scenario. He is keen to repeal the Eighth because of its cruel and unintended consequences. But he wants to restrict abortion services to so-called hard cases, the pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, those threatening the health of the mother, or involving fatal foetal abnormality.
While there’s no doubt that his view chimes with large swathes of opinion, his calling it the ‘middle ground’ puts him in conflict with the Taoiseach who is fishing in the same pond of public opinion when he talks about introducing abortion that is ‘safe, legal and rare’. As with the Taoiseach , several members of the Government front bench share Coveney’s mindset and, like him, they seem to have no formula to achieve their best case scenario.
The medical and legal experts who addressed the Oireachtas committee managed to convince pro-life deputy Hildegard Naughton and Senator Ned O’Sullivan that a 12-week limit was the only way of dealing with heartbreaking cases.
The difficulty of legally proving rape and incest was highlighted by the experts but there’s also the human dimension to asking women to submit evidence of violation. Even the most sympathetic GP may feel obliged to ask if the gardaí were informed of a rape, while Tusla should know about family circumstances involving incest.
Faced with the prospect of a Spanish inquisition, rape victims might be more tempted to take the boat to England than sample the new regime at home.
The challenge for the Government is to marry passionate personal conviction with the State’s duty to provide healthcare. As Micheál Martin said, ‘the challenge every one of us faces is to consider fundamental issues. To find a balance between personal beliefs and the laws we require others to follow’.
Coveney is as sincere as his conservative constituents in his abhorrence of abortion on demand, even within strict time limits, but other than his hunch that one doctor would be enough to sanction an abortion in exceptional cases like rape, after a conversation with the ‘victim’, he has no firm idea about how that can be achieved. Perhaps he will come up with a solution, but one shouldn’t count on it.
If he fails to, yet goes ahead to challenge Harris’s legislation, to be brought forward in the event of the Repeal referendum being passed, then he could help bring in a more liberal abortion regime than the Taoiseach envisages.
The last thing most people want is an abortion freefor-all, with no regulation, oversight or legal limits.
For all his scruples, that’s ironically where Coveney and his halfbaked ideas may be taking us.
➤➤ Eir chief Richard Moat says his company abandoned the broadband plan as it was ‘complex and onerous.” Maybe so but it’s not half as complex and onerous as dealing with the condescending bullies in Eir’s customer service department, not to mention the company’s disgraceful over charging of clients that has brought it before the courts on multiple occasions.