Ireland-Abortion: Pat Rabbitte v Cardinal Sean Brady (August 26, 2012)

The Catholic Primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady, has stated in an interview on the RTE radio programme This Week that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1992 ‘X Case’ is “flawed” and that a referendum should be held to give the public the opportunity to overturn it.

He outlined the churches total opposition to abortion and stated emphatically that the church will lobby politicians on the issue. On the same programme Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said he did not have any objection to the church stating its position, but was surprised by the cardinal’s reference to lobbying. Quite frankly I cannot understand why Mr Rabbitte would be surprised at the church stance on the issue. Are we not dealing with a matter of life and death for the unborn Mr Rabbitte? Thankfully FG backbenchers are in no mood to accept abortion. I strongly recommend lobbying of them by the church. Even within the Labour Party there are rural TDs who are opposed to abortion. Abortion is the deliberate killing of the innocent unborn child in the womb. Buzz words like "pro-choice","termination", "womens rights" cannot alter the reality that abortion involves the tearing to pieces of the unborn child in the womb. It is MURDER.

The government has established an expert group to advise on Ireland’s pro-life laws, following the recent European Court ruling on abortion. It is widely expected to recommend in favour of abortion. Such a report must be opposed tooth and nail. It cannot make moral what is immoral.

An unborn child IRRESPECTIVE of how it was conceived is entitled to live. It has committed no crime. It exists as a new human being. To abort it is MURDER even if conceived by rape. The rapist should serve a minimum of twenty years in jail. To abort a child creates two victims -mother and child. It is also time to consider the psychological and physical damage done by abortion to women.

Under Catholic teaching women are entitled to all treatment necessary to save their lives if suffering from a life threatening physical ailment. The child may be UNINTENTIONALLY killed in the course of such treatment. That is not abortion as there was NO DELIBERATE intent to kill the child.

The Life Institute outlines three important facts that the expert group cannot ignore:

• It’s a fact that abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother - and leading Irish medical experts have already publicly confirmed this fact. As Professor John Bonner, the Chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, told a Dáil Committee; “It would never cross an obstetrician’s mind that intervening in a case of pre-eclampsia, cancer of the cervix or ectopic pregnancy is abortion. They are not abortion as far as the professional is concerned, these are medical treatments that are essential to save the life of the mother.” It is wrong to confuse necessary medical treatment (which doesn’t intend to harm the baby), with abortion, which deliberately takes the life of a child.
• Ireland, without abortion, is the safest place in the world for a mother to have a baby, according to the United Nations1. We should protect our pro-life laws - because they protect both mother and baby.
• The European Court ruling places Ireland under no obligation to legalise abortion. Under our Constitution it is the Irish people who have the final say on such matters. Opinion polls show that our ban on abortion is supported by the majority of the people. [1] Report on Maternal Mortality, World Health Organisation, the UN (2007, 2010)