Abortion: Time For Honesty

If you didn t know beforehand, you certainly do now: abortions are currently being carried out in Dublin hospitals. I had understood this to be the case, for some time. But there has been a tendency to obfuscate what is the reality of medical practice in at least some maternity hospitals here. That kind of avoidance is understandable: no other social issue inflames anything like the same kind of violent emotions, among a significant number of Irish people, as abortion does. There is, what s more, the constant threat of bullying, intimidation and potential violence from particular anti-abortion pressure groups. But, even taking these considerations into account, the clear confirmation provided by the Master of the Rotunda Hospital, Dr. Peter McKenna, to the Sunday Tribune, that abortion is taking place in certain defined circumstances, is to be welcomed.
Peter McKenna has emphasised that there are very few instances where abortion is considered necessary to protect the life of the mother. He has also made it clear that, for the mother, there is a choice involved. We have got to be in a position to say: We can offer you the treatment here so that you will not die , he told the Tribune. So let us be doubly clear: it seems to me that he is not talking about treatment, as a by-product of which the foetus is lost. He is talking about abortion as a precautionary measure to reduce the risk to the life of the mother.
Some women might prefer to take the risk, rather than terminating the pregnancy and that is their right. But some mothers at least have elected for abortion, and Irish hospitals have carried out the procedure.
The revelation is positive, too, in that we are better to know, and better to deal with that knowledge, than to engage in a kind of collective self-delusion. Too often in Ireland, this has been people s instinctive response the less said the better! where anything of a potentially divisive nature is concerned. But it is evident at this stage that we were, over the years, very badly scarred by this inclination towards reticence. The horrors that have lately been revealed in relation to child abuse, and to child sexual abuse in particular, should stand as sufficient warning. How much pain and suffering might have been prevented had people been willing to acknowledge that these terrible things were happening, and had they been willing to confront them?
There is a new kind of revisionism creeping in which involves an attempt to suggest that, somehow, things were really much better back then; that in the 1940s, 1950s and maybe even in the 1960s, we had values that we have now either lost or are in the process of losing. In relation to schools, and education, my own observations on this are simple: there are ups and downs, of course, in everything, but it is one of the most wonderful things imaginable, to witness the pleasure and enjoyment contemporary children so often get from school. The experience of my generation could not have been more different. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, there was an appalling sense of apprehension, fear and terror at the violence and unpleasantness that might be unleashed at any time. The removal of that constant, poisonous sense of dread has changed the world for children and it is undoubtedly a much better place for it.
It was only through the struggle to achieve a level of honesty about interpersonal relationships, which was spearheaded by the Women s Liberation movement, that we finally achieved the emotional strength to acknowledge the bitter truth about the appalling violence that was routinely visited upon children. In the same spirit, the willingness to be honest with ourselves about the issue of abortion also certainly represents the best way forward.
Dr. Peter McKenna s clarity does have potentially far-reaching consequences. To begin with, elements of the anti-abortion lobby may seize on it as a basis for demanding a new referendum that would restore what they had believed to be an absolute ban on abortion, prior to the Supreme Court s decision in the X case. The fact that their position is broadly supported by at least two and probably by four of the independent TDs who are currently propping up the Fianna Fail/PD coalition, complicates matters even further. And then there is the fact that a significant number of Fianna Fail TDs have shown what amounts to an irrational fear in relation to abortion: you might support your own daughter or your mistress having one but you couldn t be seen to condone it publicly.
This may be about to change. In the light of what Dr. Peter McKenna has stated, it is much easier for people to say simply and clearly: there are situations where abortion is the best option. Because to suggest otherwise is to argue in effect that it is better to risk the life of the mother. Is that what Mary O Rourke believes? Is that what David Andrews, Micheal Martin, Eoin Ryan and Brian Lenihan believe? Somehow I doubt it. But I would like to know where these and other Fianna Fail TDs stand on the issue. Should the life of the mother be put at risk, rather than offering her the option of having an abortion? Dr. Peter McKenna has made it easier for us all to give an honest answer to what really is a straightforward question. Faced with the choice, what would you want your own partner, sister or daughter to do? I know what my own answer would be: I would not want them to take any avoidable risk. It is a terrible dilemma for any woman to be faced with but for me the answer is easy.
I would go much further than this in asserting the woman s right to choose. But for now let us acknowledge that doctors in Ireland carry out abortions in an entirely conscientious and ethical spirit, and let us legislate for that, as a minimum.
We need to be honest with ourselves as a society, about abortion. Dr. Peter McKenna deserves our respect and our thanks for setting what may be a painful process in motion. It is now up to the Government to take the next step.