No sooner had media coverage on the A, B and C case started to die down than another ‘case’ comes to light. Isn’t it extraordinary how this happens?The newest case – for the moment – is that of a thirty-nine-year-old English lady who is reportedly suffering from cancer and who became pregnant earlier this year. While we have, and indeed must have, full sympathy for her in relation to her cancer, her case is now being used by pro-abortion organisations and media in an intensified push towards having abortion legalised in Ireland.
The Irish Times admonishes us that – ‘Time and again, in the history of our abortion debate, life throws up profoundly painful cases that test the limits, ambiguities and inadequacies of our law and of the politics of denial that underpin it.’ (That’s media-speak for ‘we must legalise abortion in Ireland immediately.’) The newspaper continues on the same theme – ‘As she faces into an uncertain, curtailed future she has shown a real courage, … in speaking out about her treatment to ensure that others do not have to go through the same hell.’
The right to life of the unborn in Ireland has constitutional protection and there is a supreme court ruling on the relevant article as it related to a woman who it was claimed at the time was suicidal. While diverging judgments were delivered in the X-case ruling the judgment of Finlay CJ is often cited
–if it can be established as a matter of probability that there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother, which can only be avoided by the termination of her pregnancy, such termination is permissible.
But, ‘termination of her pregnancy’ is simply that, each of us terminated our mothers pregnancy by being born. Termination of pregnancy does not imply abortion even though it is regularly interpreted in this way. Abortion is the direct killing of the unborn baby, by whatever means, and at whatever stage of pregnancy. Termination of a pregnancy consists of – necessary medical care for both mother and unborn baby. This is, and has always been, established Irish medical care and ethics. If the baby unfortunately dies, then that is not abortion – the intention is to save the lives of both mother and baby.
However, to return to the latest case to be used by the pro-abortion lobby – it seems that the consultants caring for the woman sought the advice of the ethics forum at the hospital involved as to whether she was ‘eligible for an abortion in Ireland’ because she was ‘suffering from a life-threatening illness’. According to reports, the ethics forum, having considered the issue ‘for at least a week, or possibly two’, ruled against her. Then, following a further three weeks spent organising travel and finding a suitable institution in London, the woman underwent an abortion of her 10/11 weeks-old unborn baby during the summer of this year. She was so unwell and weak that she had to be helped onto the London-bound aircraft by her partner.
The woman is quoted as saying – ‘The delay in having an abortion could well have made my condition much worse … But why is it that such a simple medical treatment is not available, even when a mother’s life is at risk?’
Abortion is not a treatment for cancer, but real treatment for cancer would not have been withheld in this case even if as a consequence of that treatment the unborn baby had died, this would not have been a direct attack on the life of the unborn baby. Neither is abortion ‘a simple medical treatment’. Abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn baby at any stage of his or her life from conception onwards.
It has now emerged that that the hospital consultants in question were ‘guided, but not instructed’ by the findings of the hospital ethics forum. The forum, when approached by medical staff involved in making ethically difficult decisions, offers ‘informed opinion’. So it was not the ethics forum that made the decision that the lady could not have her baby aborted in Ireland. Just another example of media hype in an effort to influence ordinary people towards an acceptance of abortion.
