Addressing the great taboo

Dr Ruairi Hanley

Last week, I found myself in a bar overlooking Navan racecourse observing the sunset with a pint in right paw. Outside, swallows prepared for their departure to the Sahara as mist slowly descended on a track where many a fortune has been won and lost. Ah yes, it was a magnificent sight, and not a bad way to mark a 33rd birthday.

Earlier in the evening, a possibly intoxicated elderly gentleman leaning on the bar remarked upon my age by way of greeting, “How are you young fellow?” I informed him that I was feeling well as I approached my mid-thirties.

“Thirty-three is a great age,” he announced. “Sure wasn’t Our Lord 33 when they crucified him!” I nodded agreeably and muttered ‘Jesus Christ’ under my breath. “The very man!” exclaimed my new friend.

Having escaped this strange conversation, I retreated to my pint and allowed my thoughts to wander to my next column for the IMT. You see my friends, this week I have a slight problem — I’m scared.

In six years of writing, there is only one issue that I have never addressed for fear of the hysterical retribution that will follow. This topic appears to inspire irrationality in the most educated of minds and base hostility in others. However, it is possible that becoming a year closer to prostate enlargement has stiffened my spine. Alternatively, maybe I have had enough of listening to aggressive screaming masquerading as honest debate.

Either way, I have decided this week to discuss the most contentious subject in the world of Irish medicine — the one that inspires referendums, street protests and occasional riots. God help me, but I’m going to write about abortion.

Facts and fiction
Let us begin with the facts. It is beyond dispute that several thousand Irish women travel to the UK every year to have a termination of pregnancy. It also appears that the overwhelming majority of these are not preformed for medical illnesses. In effect, for personal, financial or social reasons these women do not want to have a child.

Their legal right to travel and avail of this service in another state is beyond dispute. However, to carry out such procedures in Ireland is a criminal act as the unborn is protected by the Constitution.

The ‘pro-choice’ movement believes that this country should provide a similar service to that in the UK, and that this is a basic right of women. The ‘pro-life’ organisations, meanwhile, believe that the unborn child is a living person with a right to existence, and that termination of that life should remain a crime. So far pretty clear.

Unfortunately, in Ireland this fundamental issue cannot be debated honestly. Thus we have a situation where the discussion appears to centre around rare medical conditions that might put a pregnant woman’s life in danger. These unlikely clinical scenarios are highlighted by the pro-choice movement as alleged examples of where Ireland’s lack of abortion services puts women’s lives at risk.

I admit this type of discussion makes me angry due to its fundamental intellectual dishonesty. Maternity related deaths in Ireland are among the lowest in the developed world, so to somehow suggest that the existence of abortion clinics would lower this figure further is not supported by any scientific or medical evidence.

Hundreds of women in Ireland are treated every year for dangerous conditions such as ectopic pregnancy without these ever being considered in the same context as termination of a viable foetus. I believe that to suggest such interventions are in any way comparable to social abortion is to engage in extremely manipulative behaviour. The pro-choice movement is well aware of this, which begs the question why they spend so much time talking about the incredibly rare, medically necessary abortion rather than arguing the case in favour of the right to choose?

It has occurred to me that such tactics are being used for a very cynical reason. Pro-choice activists may have concluded that they cannot win a fair democratic debate in a conservative country such as Ireland. So they might have decided to confuse the issue, in the hope that their ultimate aim will be introduced by stealth. I believe this to be disingenuous in the extreme.

I would like to point out that my mind is far from made up on this subject. I admit that in a country where contraception is universally available, even after potential conception, I instinctively find it difficult to accept the need for facilities to terminate healthy established pregnancies. However, I can also accept that there is something breathtakingly appalling about bringing an unwanted child into the world. It saddens me to think how many infants grow up in this country unloved and neglected by parents unwilling or unable to take on the responsibilities involved.

Another referendum
I can assure the pro-choice movement that I will genuinely listen to any calm and rational argument they may put forward in favour of the introduction of abortion in Ireland. They may even convince me that such facilities are necessary for healthy women who do not wish to have children and cannot care for them.

Unfortunately, to date they, and their political supporters, have shown themselves incapable of advancing such a discussion. Instead, they have apparently sought to muddy the waters and avoid the main issue.

I suggest a simple solution: another referendum calling for the introduction of abortion facilities in Ireland broadly similar to those in the UK.

Let both sides explain why they are either in favour or against this proposal and advance their arguments accordingly. The focus must be on the typical scenario and not the clinical rarity. If such a referendum were to take place my vote would, for now, be undecided.

I am prepared to listen. I am prepared to have my views changed. But I will no longer listen to dishonesty and manipulation. Now, I will sit back and await the hate mail.