Shadow of Dark Ages lifts at last

Some years ago, an Irish midwife told me a story with a very long shadow. A woman in her care gave birth, but the newborn infant was entirely missing the back of its head. It had the most beautiful face, she said, but no brain. It could not suckle, cry, react; it could do nothing at all except the automatic things – the heartbeat, the tiny breaths, the slow but certain dying that might take hours. The mother went home, alone. And the nurses did what they had always quietly done in such cases: they left the baby under an open window to hasten its inevitable death.

So, here I am now writing from this same Ireland, the Ireland that made international news this weekend for finally shining light into an old darkness.

Ireland voted overwhelmingly to repeal the 35-year-old Eighth Amendment to the country’s constitution, which gave the unborn – the foetus – the same right to life as the woman carrying it.

Let me explain: you know that annoying thing when you’re pregnant and strangers touch your belly, or tell you off for having a drink like you’re public property now?

Well, that was the law, with jail sentences attached.

Under the Eighth Amendment, an expectant woman became an incubator, a vessel whose own life, choices and healthcare could only be considered in relation to the foetus within.

You’ve been raped? Carry that child.

You’ve got aggressive cancer and need treatment that would be detrimental to the foetus? Carry that child.

You’re miscarrying and your body is being poisoned by the baby you wanted so badly, now dying within you? Carry that child.

You’ve been in a car accident and there’s no hope for you, but you’re pregnant? Carry that child. Stay on life support until its heart stops beating, and only then will we let you go.

Scans reveal your baby is so badly flawed that is cannot live outside your womb? Carry that child. Carry it for nine months knowing how it will end – that you will give birth, only to watch it suffocate.

Yes, finally this torment, this shadow of the Dark Ages, has been lifted in Ireland. That is why we celebrate.

Now for Mexico, Nicaragua, Angola, Nigeria, Malta, El Salvador …