Reflections on Ireland's abortion legislation

The Irish Government in passing legislation to introduce abortion in Ireland have not only trampled on the conscientious objection of the members of both coalition partners but have also placed medical personnel in Ireland’s hospitals in an impossible situation.   The Government action in passing this legislation poses a fundamental question about how civil society can respond to the imposition of an unjust law. Central to this question is the very nature of conscientious objection itself and whether it is simply a right or does it also imply a duty to oppose the injustice.

The philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote:

Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.

Clearly there is potential conflict between freedom of conscience and the duty to obey unjust national laws.  On the one hand it is not possible or desirable for citizens to exercise complete freedom over which laws they chose to obey, for obvious reasons, but  on the other hand, just laws, rooted in natural law should never place a citizen in a situation where his/her own conscience is in conflict with the law.

This legislation is about terminating the lives of unborn babies and it prioritises the so called 'right' to an abortion above the right of doctors and nurses to act in accordance with their consciences, but in the end the fundamental point regarding abortion and human rights is that an action that deliberately ends the life of an innocent human being cannot be anyone's right since it constitutes the most serious breach of human rights possible.

Pope John Paul II warned against a ‘new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden than its predecessors, which attempts to pit even human rights against the family and against man’. 

Bear in mind that Pope John Paul II had personal experience of the evils of Nazism and Communism, and he was speaking at the dawn of the new millennium, yet he saw what he termed, this new ideology, as being more treacherous and underhand than either of those regimes. The onward march of this ideology is directed at National Governments through international institutions like the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe.

Opposition is stifled by, anti democratic decision-making and by subtle attempts to control freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and conscientious objection. It is partly achieved by designation of certain groups as victim classes and prioritizing their rights above the rights of the rest. It is also achieved by gaining control of the language and presenting issues that most people reject, by sanitizing that language used to describe it. This agenda masquerades as the right to health, women’s rights, children’s rights and other rights. Some groups really do need safeguards but their special status is being usurped by Governments and powerful NGO's in order to further radical agendas. Traditionally accepted natural law Human Rights are being replaced by bogus rights, which are being placed in a position of supremacy over real human rights.

Now that this legislation has been signed by President Higgins all that remains for the Bill to be implemented is the finalisation of the regulations and the signature of the Health Minister James Reilly.  This has the effect of placing medical personnel in a similar situation to that experienced by the Glasgow midwives who refused to oversee abortion procedures when the hospital reorganised abortion services, transferring late abortion patients to the labour ward rather than the gynaecology ward and whose case, which they won on appeal, has now been referred to a higher court.

The importance of informed conscience in casting our votes

The ‘race for the presidency’ occupies much of the media’s attention at the moment in Ireland.   Catholics, in particular, should be reminded that no matter what public opinion says, no matter what their individual likes or dislikes are, each voter in the upcoming presidential election must follow her or his own informed conscience in the choice she or he makes.  As Cardinal Raymond Burke said in Knock recently:

‘An erroneous notion of the moral law and of conscience has led to an equally erroneous exclusion of the discussion of the moral law and of questions of conscience from public life.  In many so-called advanced nations, we witness an increasing tendency to deny to citizens the most fundamental right, the right to observe the dictates of one’s conscience, formed through right reason and the teaching of the Church.  We witness the phenomenon in the language of political leaders who profess to be Catholics and yet vote for legislation which violates the moral law, claiming to hold personally to what the moral law demands but, at the same time, to be obliged by their political office to follow a different law in making decisions for those whom they represent and govern.’

He went to say that today: ‘The struggle is fierce, and the opposition is powerful.’

[Emphasis added]

We must inform ourselves of the views of the candidates who say they are Catholic (this is most important), but we must also, of course, make ourselves aware and take note of the ideologies and agendas of those candidates for the presidency who are not Catholic, or who are not Christian.   What do these people stand for, what are their beliefs with regard to the sacredness of all human life from conception to natural death?  

What are their beliefs with regard to the dignity of marriage – the union of one man and one woman?  Will they uphold the Constitutional pledge to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack? 

What are their beliefs with regard to the Constitutional recognition of the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society?  Will they uphold the Constitutional guarantee to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State?

All of these questions must be answered satisfactorily before we enter the polling booth on presidential election voting day.

We call on all our Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland – please make a public statement now, well in advance of the voting day, so that all Catholic voters are made aware of the importance of knowing the stance of each candidate with regard to the questions posed above