Category: Culture Matters

Irish proposal for abortion law riddled with wishful thinking

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment
Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny

What looks like the beginning of open warfare ensued in the Republic of Ireland yesterday with the announcement by the Coalition government there that it is going to prepare legislation for “limited” abortion in the State.  In the aftermath of the announcement, the four Catholic Archbishops have issued their strongest ever condemnation of abortion as a moral evil. Meanwhile another bishop describes the proposal as the “first step on the road to a culture of death”. The main government party in the Coalition is also divided on the proposal.

The legislation is seen by all pro-life groups in the country as the first step towards abortion on demand in that the threat of suicide is being accepted as a ground for granting an abortion. The pro-abortion activists and those who support the proposed legislation – even though they say they are not pro-abortion – are failing to answer the question why these grounds for abortion will not lead to abortion on demand as it has done so in all other jurisdictions where it has been introduced.

Currently abortion in any form is prohibited by an act of parliament. This ban was confirmed as the will of the people in a constitutional referendum in 1983 which prohibits legislation to introduce abortion. This provision, however, was compromised by a judgement of the Supreme Court in the 1990s when it ruled that a woman threatening to commit suicide had a right to have an abortion since this was taken to be a threat to her life.

That judgement has been heavily criticised by psychiatrists who consider that threats of suicide are far too complex to be made the basis for a decision to end the life of an unborn child – even if that were ever to be considered a morally defensible act.

The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny and his senior Ministers are planning to reassure members of his party that allowing the threat of suicide as a ground for termination will not lead to abortion on demand. He has not, however, offered any kind of coherent reasoning to back up this assertion.

Minister for Health James Reilly last night said that “legislation supported by regulations will inform us to ensure that suicide will not be abused as it is perceived to be in other jurisdictions”. He has  given no clues as to why pro-life campaigners should not consider this as any more than wishful thinking.

Irish radio reported him as saying that the legislation would have to cover suicide as the Supreme Court had been very clear in its judgment on the issue. He would try to create as much consensus as possible on the issue and hoped the legislation would be passed before next summer if not sooner.

Dr Berry Kiely of Ireland’s Pro Life Campaign said if the threat of suicide is included in any legislation to give legal clarity on abortion it will radically change medical practice in Ireland and the Irish legal system. Speaking on Irish radio Dr Kiely said it would introduce, for the first time, the direct and intentional killing of the unborn into Irish law.

She said there was a difference between medical treatment, which may result in the death of a foetus, and abortion, which is intended to end the life of the unborn. “This is where the whole issue of suicide comes into it, because a woman who says she’s suicidal because of being pregnant with this baby, what she’s saying is she doesn’t want a living baby at the end of this procedure,” Dr Kiely said. “You’re actually, in that situation, proposing to directly and intentionally ensure the death of her baby. That’s a very radical change for medical practice in Ireland, for our legal system, for whatever.”

The Government statement yesterday did not mention the matter but it is accepted that the grounds for a legal termination will include the risk of suicide or self-destruction. The legislative scheme will not, however, incorporate, or make legal, abortion in other in extremis situations, such as rape, sexual abuse, or rare fatal foetal abnormalities. However, the admission of legitimacy on any grounds – and particularly on grounds as open to manipulation as a threat of suicide – is seen as the thin end of the wedge to bring abortion on demand to Ireland.

Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has said he is surprised by the vigour of the language used by the Archbishops statement. However, he has not on this occasion suggested that the representatives of the Catholic Church had no right to speak on a matter like this. The Bishop of Kilmore, Leo O’Reilly, said that the Government’s decision to introduce legislation and regulations on the abortion issue is the “first step on the road to a culture of death”.

The four Archbishops in their statement encouraged “all to pray that our public representatives will be given the wisdom and courage to do what is right”.

They state categorically that “If what is being proposed were to become law, the careful balance between the equal right to life of a mother and her unborn child in current law and medical practice in Ireland would be fundamentally changed. It would pave the way for the direct and intentional killing of unborn children. This can never be morally justified in any circumstances.

“The decision of the Supreme Court in the ‘X’ case unilaterally overturned the clear pro-life intention of the people of Ireland as expressed in Article 40.3.3 of our Constitution. To legislate on the basis of such a flawed judgement would be both tragic and unnecessary.

“The dignity of the human person and the common good of humanity depend on our respect for the right to life of every person from the moment of conception to natural death. The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights. It is the very basis for every other right we enjoy as persons.

“The lives of untold numbers of unborn children in this State now depend on the choices that will be made by our public representatives. The unavoidable choice that now faces all our public representatives is: will I choose to defend and vindicate the equal right to life of a mother and the child in her womb in all circumstances, or will I choose to licence the direct and intentional killing of the innocent baby in the womb?”

The government parties have declared that in the vote on this issue – when it comes to a decision on legislation – will not be a free vote. On this also the Archbishops had strong words on the moral implication of such a ruling. “Moreover,” they said, “in a decision of such fundamental moral importance every public representative is entitled to complete respect for the freedom of conscience. No one has the right to force or coerce someone to act against their conscience. Respect for this right is the very foundation of a free, civilised and democratic society.”

The husband of the late Savita Halappanavar says he would welcome any legislation that would prevent another death in the circumstances in which his wife died. Mrs Halappanavar (31) died in Galway University Hospital in October. She was found to be miscarrying her 17-week pregnancy. This sad case has provided a very emotional context to the legislation issue although this proposal to legislate has been on the agenda of the Government since a negative European Court ruling in 2010. However, there is no confirmation that Mrs. Halappanavar’s death would have been prevented had he baby been deliberately killed by the medical team dealing with her miscarriage. Praveen Halappanavar has said she was repeatedly refused a termination.  No corroborating evidence of this has come to light as yet. The report of two investigations on what actually happened in the days leading to her death are currently awaited.

Two islands hand-in-hand on a path to moral and social chaos?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

The Irish government, currently wriggling its way towards legislation to overturn its country’s pro-life laws without any clear mandate to do so from its electorate, will  also soon be trying to overturn its pro-family and pro-marriage laws in pursuit of the folly of gay “marriage”. It is now embarking of a review of the Irish Constitution which since the 1930s has kept Ireland’s laws in a framework friendly to all those values. This review is being driven by elements within the government who see their mission in Irish society as one of bringing it into line with the rest of the liberal world. In doing this they are doing no more than imitating their nearest neighbours in the United Kingdom.

Indeed, what is unfolding in the Irish Republic is nothing short of a mirror-image of what its former colonial masters have done and are doing to themselves – providing abortion on demand, destroying marriage and de-Christianinsing their society at a breakneck pace.

The terms “dismay” and “outrage” seem too mild to describe the reaction which is evident across Britain in the wake of the government’s decision there to press on with its redefinition of marriage. Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph in its editorial comment decried the needles import to Britain of what it called America’s “culture wars” on this issue. Writing about the pitiable inadequacy of the so-called guarantees of religious freedom being offered by the government it went on to say:

Nor do the religious protections address another matter that vexes critics – namely the redefinition of marriage, understood by every human society through the ages to be a legal relationship between people of opposite sexes. Many Tory MPs and voters will simply not be reconciled to this, and neither will the churches, which have not even begun to organise against the Bill. They have millions of followers, and should they target vulnerable Conservative seats – as happened to Labour when the Roman Catholic Church forced the last government to retreat over faith schools’ admissions quotas – Mr Cameron may come to rue the day he embarked on this reform. Sad to say, but in a country that prides itself on its tolerance, he risks sowing division where none previously existed.

The latest onslaught on the government comes from the media response group, Catholic Voices, which this morning issued a statement describing the government’s announcements as shameful, undemocratic and cloaked in false legitimacy.

Their assessment and detailed analysis is as follows:

Tuesday’s Government response to its marital redefinition consultation, conducted earlier this year, has conclusively demonstrated that the entire consultation process had no purpose other than to shroud a shamelessly undemocratic exercise in a cloak of false legitimacy. It has made clear that it intends to redefine marriage despite opposition from the overwhelming majority of respondents to the  Government’s proposals.

Of 228,000 individual responses to the consultation, 53pc – fewer than 121,000 – said same-sex couples ought to be able to marry, according to the Government. However, with every single petition the Government received on the issue opposing marital redefinition, it’s clear that more than four times as many people contacted the Government to support the traditional understanding of marriage rather than to overturn it: the Coalition for Marriage’s petition alone bore 509,800 signatures when it was submitted. It now bears more than 620,000.

The Government, therefore, can claim no mandate for its plans, and Archbishops Vincent Nichols and Peter Smith hardly exaggerate when they say “the process by which this has happened can only be described as shambolic”.

Marital redefinition went unmentioned in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat election manifestos, and was absent from their 2010 programme for government. Parliamentary process has been scorned in the rush to redefine marriage: the Government has produced neither a green paper nor a white paper on this issue, which wasn’t so much as alluded to in the Queen’s speech at the State Opening of Parliament this May.

Despite lacking democratic legitimacy, Mr Cameron admitted last week that he intends to go even further than previously planned by facilitating the solemnizing of same-sex marriages by religious bodies. This U-turn makes a mockery of the already questionable consultation process, and is a profound betrayal of those who responded in good faith to the consultation – which a dozen times ruled out changes to what it called ‘religious marriage’.

Responding to Mr Cameron’s admission, the Anglican bishops drily observed that at least this suggested that the Government was starting to realise that, contrary to the chaotic language of the consultation document, the law recognises only one institution of marriage: “We welcome the fact that in his statement the Prime Minister has signalled he is abandoning the Government’s earlier intention to distinguish between civil and religious marriage.”

The Anglican bishops said that they looked forward to studying the Government’s response to the consultation, but will have found little comfort there. The Government boasts that it intends to introduce a ‘quadruple lock’ to protect religious institutions from being compelled to act against their principles in connection with the proposed legislation, but admits that churches and other religious bodies could still face legal challenges if they refuse to solemnize same-sex marriages.

The Government’s decision is probably motivated by a desire to evade challenges under the  European Convention on Human Rights , but it is difficult to have confidence in any planned safeguards; the Human Rights Act embeds the ECHR in UK law, and the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that if a state allows for marriage between persons of the same sex, it must do so on exactly the same basis that it allows for other marriages.

Leaving aside how later parliaments might rescind any safeguards established by this one, it seems clear that any religious body which declined to solemnize same-sex marriages would almost certainly be acting against the Human Rights Act and the ECHR, and would, at the very least, be seriously vulnerable to legal challenges.

The Church of England, uniquely to be banned from solemnizing same-sex marriages, will probably be proof against such challenges, but in this case it would be the state itself that would be compelled to stand in Strasbourg and justify why same-sex Anglican couples should be uniquely barred by law from marrying in their own churches.

The proposals raise important questions about the status of the Church of England as an established church; the Government recognises Parliament’s right to overrule Anglican canon law, but ignores how the basic definition of marriage in English law has for centuries been that embedded in the Church of England’s official prayerbook, licensed by Parliament and recognising marriage as a voluntary union of a man and a woman with the principle aim of bearing and rearing children.

The Government’s proposition would require the state to speak differently from both sides of its mouth, Parliament saying one thing, and the Church of England saying another. This raises a profound constitutional problem, as George Pitcher recognised on BBC this week:

 “If we’ve got the state having a completely different definition of what marriage is from what the Church calls ‘holy matrimony’ then it’s a bit difficult to see that the Church can continue with such a central area of our theology at variance with the state. We’ve got the Queen, who is not only the head of state but also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, presiding over our established church and – as a figurehead –  over the state, and it’s very difficult to see how that can cohere once we’re departing on such important institutions in our heritage and history.”

Not merely is Mr Cameron out of his depth on how redefining marriage could have serious repercussions for the British constitution, but the entire Government seems to have a grievously flawed understanding of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

The Government insists “no one should face successful legal action for hate speech because they preach the belief that marriage can only be between a man and a woman,” but in using the word ‘preach’, it seems, as with cases currently being considered by the European Court of Human Rights, to reduce ‘freedom of religion’ to mere ‘freedom of worship’. The ECHR, however, guarantees freedom to manifest religious belief in “worship, teaching, practice and observance”.

Catholic priests may be able to preach that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, but will ordinary Catholics be permitted to practice what the Church preaches? Will those who believe ‘same-sex marriage’ to be a contradiction in terms be obliged to recognise it as a reality, rather than a legal fiction? The Government’s response is far from clear on such issues, and Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth seems to have been fully justified in asking, “Will Catholic schools, societies and institutions be free (and legally safeguarded) to teach the full truth of Christ and the real meaning of life and love?”

Interviewed on Radio 4 this Tuesday, Culture Secretary Maria Miller displayed her fundamental incomprehension of such issues when she dismissed concerns about consummation and adultery as irrelevant to same-sex marriages. Responding to the fact that some see these issues as central to what the word ‘marriage’ means, she said, “this may well be why the Catholic Church does not want to opt into the system of being able to offer same sex marriage”. However, as Timothy Radcliffe says, it is less that the Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage than that “it considers it to be impossible.”

If the Government’s response to its consultation tells us anything, it tells us that it wasn’t listening.

Religious freedom, however, is not the immediate issue here; more urgent, as our briefing paper In Defence of Conjugality: The Common-Good Case Against Same-Sex Marriage points out, are the questions of what marriage is, why the state has an interest in it, and whether the state has the power to redefine it.

The Government’s response states that “At its heart, marriage is about two people who love each other making a formal commitment to each other,” but it is difficult to see why such a private commitment should be a public concern: the state is not in the business of legitimating private relationships, and cares about marriage purely as a matter of public good.

British law has long recognised that marriage provides a uniquely stable and balancedenvironment in which children can be born and raised; protecting it as the one public institution that exists to uphold the principle that every child should – ideally – be raised with the love of a mother and a father.

It is telling, therefore, that the Government’s 47-page response devotes just three paragraphs to children, relegating them to the peripheral ‘wider issues’, and rejecting outright the view of 84pc of British people, as found by a ComRes poll for Catholic Voices this March, that children do best in life when raised by a mother and a father in a stable and loving relationship.

Regardless of governmental cynicism, it is indisputable that many support this project for the best of motives. Unfortunately, such support is misconceived: the introduction of same-sex marriage would not correct any injustices, couples in civil partnerships already having the same rights as married couples, and can only be brought about if British law decrees children to be at best peripheral to marriage and the state to have an interest in regulating people’s private lives.

Few people in modern Britain, it is safe to say, want either of these things.

(A version of this post appeared earlier today on the MercatorNet blog, Conjugality, where you will find more posts on the issue of marriage redefinition.)

Answering a deceptive apologia

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters2 Comments
Professor William Reville

In a very useful, polite but authoritative rebuttal of an apologia for the killing of the unborn in an Irish newspaper late last month, the distinguished Irish scientist, William Reville, concludes that while science remains a very long way from a fundamental understanding of how the embryo automatically unfolds so unerringly along the long developmental pathway from zygote to adult human it has already demonstrated that conception is the start of a biological continuum for each individual life that extends in an unbroken line until it terminates in death at the other end of the continuum.

“At every stage along this continuum each individual life has the full human properties appropriate to that stage. Pro-choice advocates refer to the early embryo as a potential human being. But in my understanding, this definition is wrong.  In my opinion, the correct description of the embryo is a human being with potential.”

Read the full article in the Irish Catholic newspaper here.

William Reville is an Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at University College Cork.

Irish legislation on abortion could be psychiatrists’ “nightmare”

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

The Chairman of the Irish Association of Suicideology has said that legislation based on the X Case – as proposed to the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government in Ireland – would create a ‘logistical nightmare’ for psychiatrists if implemented. Dr Justin Brophy, a consultant psychiatrist with Wicklow Mental Health Service said this in an interview with an Irish language newspaper, Gaelscéal.

The proposal for this has come from an expert set up by the Government to propose options to it for meeting an obligation placed on it by the European Court of Human Rights to clarify the country’s law on abortion. This group has been described as flawed in its composition by pro-life activists in Ireland.

Part of the complaint about the expert group’s work is that it is alleged to have misrepresented the judgement of the ECHR judgement. The Court did not oblige the Irish Government to legislate for any form of abortion in Ireland; it simply obliged it to “clarify” its laws with regard to the position of pregnant women who might be demanding abortions. The group has proposed options for legislation to the government which prolife people say will inevitably lead to abortion on demand because of its acceptance of the terms of the X case admitting threats of suicide as a definition of a threat to the life of the mother.

Dr Brophy said that medical judgements can be wrong and psychiatrists will be on a “hiding to nothing” if asked to adjudicate in these cases. He added if a law were passed allowing for abortion on the terms of the X case that there would be public outrage if a pregnant woman took her own life after a being refused an abortion based on a psychiatrists view that she was not suicidal.” Suicidal intent, he said, is an ‘easily fabricated’ condition.

Meanwhile, public protests against the stated intent of the Government to legislate on this matter and the perception that it will do so on the basis of the X case is mounting. Catholic Church leaders are also giving very clear indications that its voice will be heard giving a very clear account of Catholic moral teaching on the issue.

In their statement issued yesterday the bishops said:

A society that believes the right to life is the most fundamental of all rights cannot ignore the fact that abortion is first and foremost a moral issue.

As a society we have a particular responsibility to ensure this right is upheld on behalf of those who are defenceless, voiceless or vulnerable.  This includes our duty as a society to defend and promote the equal right to life of a pregnant mother and the innocent and defenceless child in her womb when the life of either of these persons is at risk.

By virtue of their common humanity the life of a mother and her unborn baby are both sacred.  They have an equal right to life.  The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother.  Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such treatments are morally permissible provided every effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby.

Abortion, understood as the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby, is gravely immoral in all circumstances.  This is different from medical treatments which do not directly and intentionally seek to end the life of the unborn baby.

Current law and medical guidelines in Ireland allow nurses and doctors in Irish hospitals to apply this vital distinction in practice. This has been an important factor in ensuring that Irish hospitals are among the safest and best in the world in terms of medical care for both a mother and her unborn baby during pregnancy.  As a country this is something we should cherish, promote and protect.

The Report of the Expert Group on the Judgement in A, B and C v Ireland has put forward options that could end the practice of making this vital ethical distinction in Irish hospitals. Of the four options presented by the Report, three involve abortion – the direct and intentional killing of an unborn child.  This can never be morally justified.  The judgement of the European Court of Human Rights does not oblige the Irish Government to legislate for abortion.

Other aspects of the Report also give rise to concerns.  These include, but are not limited to the fact that:

The judgement of the European Court of Human Rights permits options on this matter of fundamental moral, social and constitutional importance that are not offered by this Report.  This includes the option of introducing a constitutional prohibition on abortion or another form of constitutional amendment to reverse the ‘X-case’ judgement.

The Report provides no ethical analysis of the options available, even though this is first and foremost a moral issue and consideration of the ethical dimension was included in the Terms of Reference.

The Report takes no account of the risks involved in trying to legislate for so-called ‘limited abortion’ within the context of the ‘X-case’ judgement.  The ‘X-case’ judgement includes the threat of suicide as grounds for an abortion.  International experience shows that allowing abortion on the grounds of mental health effectively opens the floodgates for abortion.

The Report also identifies Guidelines as an option.  It notes that Guidelines can help to ensure consistency in the delivery of medical treatment.  If Guidelines can provide greater clarity as to when life-saving treatment may be provided to a pregnant mother or her unborn child within the existing legislative framework, and where the direct and intentional killing of either person continues to be excluded, then such ethically sound Guidelines may offer a way forward.

A matter of this importance deserves sufficient time for a calm, rational and informed debate to take place before any decision about the options offered by the Expert Group Report are taken.  All involved, especially public representatives, must consider the profound moral questions that arise in responding to this Report. Abortion is gravely immoral in all circumstances, no matter how ‘limited’ access to abortion may be.

Irish abortion story begins to unravel

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

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While the Irish Government – an unhappy coalition of a socialist pro-abortion party and a traditionally conservative party – staggers under the onslaught of international media-driven opprobrium for its prolife constitution and laws, the story which generated this frenzy is now beginning to unravel.

Kitty Holland, the Irish Times journalist who broke the story of Savita Halappananvar’s tragic death, now says that the story may be ‘muddled’ and that it may be found that there was ‘no request for a termination’.

In an interview with the Irish journalist Marc Coleman on an independent radio station, Newstalk 106, Holland was asked why she said, in a story in the London Observer  newspaper four days after her Irish Times story, that “the fact that Savita had been refused a termination was a factor in her death has yet to be established”, when she omitted that caution from the Irish Times story that provoked the world reaction to Savita’s death.

Coleman then quizzed her on crucial discrepancies in her and other Irish Times reporting as to when Savita was started on antibiotics in Galway University Hospital where she died on October 24th last.

She then said: “All one can surmise is that his (Savita’s husband Praveen) recollection of events — the actual timeline and days — may be a little muddled… we only have Praveen and his solicitor’s take on what was in or not in the notes ….we’re relying all the time on their take on what happened… ”

Of course, the solicitor is a red herring. His recollection can only be of what Praveen told him after the event. This is single-source journalism of the most critical kind.

“Oh, I’m not satisfied of anything. I’m satisfied of what he told me, but I await as much as anyone else the inquiry and the findings. I can’t tell for certain — who knows what will come out in that inquiry? They may come back and say she came in with a disease she caught from something outside the hospital before she even arrived in, and there was no request for termination.., ” Holland told Coleman.

Meanwhile the political bandwagon of the pro-abortion activists in Ireland is rolling on and the Government-in-conflict is preparing to pass judgement on a biased report presented to it by an expert group, consisting of people who proved to be essentially pro-abortion in their views, with possibly one exception.  The group was set up to study the demands made on Ireland by the European Court of Human Rights to clarify the legal position of any woman in Ireland who might request an abortion in that jurisdiction. This was not a demand to legislate for abortion but every option presented to the Government by the group has ended up providing for just that.

The death of Savita and the exploitation of its treatment by Kitty Holland in the Irish Times has fed into this scenario creating something of a “perfect storm” threatening Ireland’s existing pro-life legislation. Against the background of the hysteria created by the alleged circumstances of Savita’s death the Government is now planning to publish its legislative proposals by December 20.

The media in Ireland has played a very ambiguous – at best – role in this with both the Irish Times and the national broadcaster, Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), outraging pro-life readers and listeners and adding one more element to the creation of this storm. This weekend a national opinion poll was published by one of the newspapers, the Sunday Business Post.

This was reported on RTE over the weekend as indicating that 85 percent of the sample of 1000 wished to see legislation passed on a basis of the notorious ‘X Case’, an Irish Supreme Court judgement  20 years ago which, if legislated for, would essentially give Ireland abortion on demand. The poll was completely misread by the broadcaster.

Following the publication of the poll, Ireland’s Pro-Life Campaign pointed out its flawed and confusing nature, arguing that a distinction needs to be made between medical treatment for the mother, which may result in the death of an unborn child, and abortion in circumstances where there is no threat to the mother’s life.

Up to 85% said they would favour abortion laws in line with the ‘X-Case’ ruling where the life of the woman is at risk, including suicide, while 63% favour excluding threat of suicide as grounds for abortion, the PLC pointed out.

Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chairperson of the Pro-Life Campaign, said the poll results are not reliable.

Ms Sherlock said: “I think it’s very clear that there is no basis for using this poll to claim that there is any sort of majority of people who want abortion legislation in Ireland, because the contradictions that are coming through in the poll are just too evident.

“It is too unreliable, there is a clear contradiction there, some people want legislation for X and some people want a referendum to amend X.”

Tomorrow the pro-life activists throughout Ireland are planning to converge on Dublin to demand that the Irish government resists the pressure, both national and international, to introduce what would be, in effect, abortion on demand within the jurisdiction of the Irish Republic. The abortion Act of 1967, which brought abortion on demand in Great Britain, does not apply in Northern Ireland which is also part of the UK.

More half-truth deceit?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters3 Comments

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Ireland’s maternal mortality rate is twice as high as has been previously reported, new figures show.

Does this not give the impression that previously reported figures failed to report what they should have reported?

Irish Health.com tells us this on its Newsletter and does so with a very clear agenda – to promote the rush to abortion legislation in Ireland on the back of Savita Halappanavar’s death. But that story, as any honest reader knows, is not as simple as Irish Health.com’s editor, Niall Hunter, pretends. In a posted response to a reader who complained about his story, Hunter shows clearly where he is coming from – and where he wants to take us.

Rarely, he says, has a single health story so captivated the country as the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar. Having dodged the issue for 20 years, now the Dáil must act to legislate so that no more women should have to suffer as Savita did…

Neither are the statistics he uses in his story as straightforward as he, with sleight of hand, suggests they are.

He bases his story on the first report from the recently-established Maternal Death Enquiry – MDE – Ireland. That report, he says, shows that our maternal death rate is 8 per 100,000 births, compared with 4 per 100,000 reported by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

A truthful presentation of this information would have said that on one set of criteria, statistics show what the CSO tells us; on a different set of criteria we get the MDE figure. Take your pick and argue the case for your chosen criteria – but do not say bluntly that the figure in question is twice as high as has been previously reported. That is – at best – a half-truth. At worst it is a deliberate attempt to deceive and mislead.

The MDE Ireland report, he tells us, which uses wider criteria for defining maternal death than that used by the CSO, found that in the years 2009 to 2011 inclusive, 25 mothers who attended maternity hospitals with their pregnancies died. Am I being over-suspicious in thinking that he is slipping this clause in under the radar: which uses wider criteria for defining maternal death than that used by the CSO? Given his agenda, I don’t think so.

The Irish report, he explains, adopted the more comprehensive British classification system for determining maternal death, and collated detailed data on mortality from hospitals. It classified two of the deaths in the period as being due to suicide. We are not told anything about those suicides or whether or not they were related directly to the pregnancies. This suggests more programming in favour of the forthcoming debate in which some will be trying to include threats of suicide as a pretext for signing off for abortions. “More comprehensive”.  Does that always mean more accurate and informative?

We live in dangerous times when agencies claiming the respectability which Irish Health.com claims peddle this kind of propaganda.

Lies, damn lies and politically correct ideology

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment
Children at the mercy of ideology

The Irish people  voted recently in a referendum and gave the Irish state increased powers over families in that jurisdiction. The vote was closer than expected and one of the reasons surely was that a great number of people had concerns about how much trust could be placed in the judgement and competence of the state’s child-care agencies. They did not know then what was going to be revealed about these agencies when they get caught up in the kind of  ideology which has gripped Rotherham Council in the neighbouring jurisdiction of Great Britain. Had they done so the vote might have swung the other way.

The Rotherham story, in a nutshell, is this: Three small children are removed from their foster home because the couple taking excellent care of them hold political views that social workers say make them unable to meet the youngsters’ “cultural and ethnic needs”. The children, we are told by  council, are now “safe and well, unaware of what’s happening around them”.

Allison Pearson in today’s Daily Telegraph doesn’t put a tooth in it. “That’s a lie” she says. “A comforting, callous, official lie. To remove a baby and her brother and sister from their biological parents is awful, but in dire circumstances it is the lesser evil. To settle the children in a foster home is hard, but possible, particularly when the foster mum is a nursery nurse in her fifties with years of experience. But to snatch them from that loving home a mere eight weeks later is so cruel, so stupid and so damaging that the people who made that decision should be removed from their jobs with the same haste that the infants were taken from their carers.”

This kind of ideology is viral and it is riddled with the kind of deception which Pearson points her finger at in Rotherham. The Irish people would be very naive to think that they are in some way immune from infection by this ideology or these lies. A look at the deceptions pouring out from the pro-abortion activists and their shameful abuse of the memory of Savita Halappanavar in their campaign to bring abortion on demand into the country shows only too clearly how deep the infection has already penetrated. They may live to regret the weakening of the institution of the family which they have just now conceded to. They are about to review their Constitution and for this infected element in the body politic this is going to be a further opportunity to try to bring their country on a short road to social and moral ruin.

Voices crying in the wilderness of misinformation

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

In view of the continuing and unrelenting barrage of international media misinformation surrounding the sad death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland – which the whole world must now know about – this view in Canada’s National Post, along with a useful post on a blog elsewhere, deserves further circulation.

The National Post comment is from Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform  and author of A Physician’s Guide to Discussing Abortion. It covers some of the same ground – but in more detail – covered on November 23, 2012 by J.C. von Krempach, J.D in his Turtle Bay and Beyond blog.

Von Krempach observes how the world-wide pro-abortion warriors jumped on a story that may very well now crash around their ears – if there were any honest campers left in the world’s media organisations.

For the international abortion lo
bby, the whole story was just too convenient to be true: at the very moment when the Irish government is discussing controversial plans to liberalize abortion, a pregnant woman dies in an Irish hospital because she was denied an abortion that would have saved her life.

But what are the facts?

It now appears that the young woman did not die of a complication related to pregnancy. Her autopsy has revealed that she died of blood poisoning and E. coli ESBL, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacterium. E. coli ESBL has recently spread throughout the U.K., causing urinary tract infections which can develop into blood poisoning.

Once again, the abortion lobby has erected a monument to its own disingenuity, he comments.

Stephanie Gray in the National Post points out that the tragic deaths of Savita and her pre-born daughter Prasa  really make no case for legal abortion. She says that those across the world who say it does are overlooking an important piece of information recently reported in The Irish Times and The Guardian: an autopsy revealed that Halappanavar died of septicaemia “documented ante-mortem” and E.coli ESBL.

Countless news reports are only talking about the septicaemia (i.e., blood poisoning), but few are discussing E.coli ESBL, which, incidentally enough, can lead to, you guessed it, septicaemia. Just what is E. coli ESBL? An antibiotic-resistant bacteria (not to be confused with regular strains of E. coli that cause food poisoning) that is associated with urinary tract infections (UTI). This strain of E. coli has been spreading in the UK  and last year two babies died in nearby Wales because of it. The presence of E. coli ESBL is particularly problematic if Halappanavar was given antibiotics to fight an infection that was resistant to those very antibiotics.

According to the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, E. coli is one of the most common organisms to cause a UTI and complicated UTIs are frequently associated with pregnancy. They write, “The likelihood of treatment failure and serious complications, particularly the development of antimicrobial resistance, is more common in CUTI [complicated urinary tract infection].”

So instead of jumping to the conclusions that Halappanavar needed an abortion and that Ireland needs to legalize the killing of the youngest of its kind, the reasonable approach would be to get to the bottom of what Halappanavar’s condition was and examine how it was, or was not, responded to. We have yet to hear from the hospital and the medical professionals involved as to what precisely happened, but with this report of her dying from E. coli ESBL one wonders how killing Halappanavar’s baby Prasa would have killed the E. coli.

Is it possible that E. coli ESBL ascended her vagina and entered her uterus via the dilated cervix? Yes, that’s possible. But it’s also possible that her cervix dilated (thus initiating a miscarriage) because E. coli ESBL ascended her urinary tract and caused an infection in her kidneys, which can lead to uterine contractions, and if not treated, to cervical change.

So the infection could have been elsewhere in her body besides the uterus. Even if it was in the latter (a condition known as chorioamnionitis) then it is an ethical course of action to induce labour to eliminate this pathological and lethal condition (the presence of infected membranes) from her uterus. But that act itself wouldn’t have eliminated the E. coli ESBL if it actually originated in the urinary tract, which, if resistant to interventions like antibiotics, could have lead to the septicaemia.

And yet, The Toronto Star would have you believe “There’s a very simple reason why Savita died. It’s because she wasn’t listened to.” On the contrary, much more needs to be known about how she died. But what we do know is that jumping to the conclusion that abortion should be legalized in Ireland overlooks the underlying medical condition and makes the dangerous assumption that we need to kill one person to save another.

Good news from Pakistan

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Rimsha Masih has been acquitted, Agenzia Fides reports from Islamabad.   Rimsha, a Christian girl diagnosed with a mental illness, was falsely accused of blasphemy and arrested on August 16 and then released on bail on September 8. She was alleged to have burned some pages from the Koran.

The Chief Judge of the High Court of Islmabad, Iqbal Hameedur Rehman, issued the acquittal verdict and dismissed the complaint that contained the charges against the girl. The Court accepted the argument of the defence, based on statements made by three witnesses who accused the Muslim Imam Khalid Jadoon Chishti of fabricating evidence to frame Rimsha.

“This is a victory for justice in Pakistan “ said Paul Bhatti, Minister for Harmony and leader of the APMA (All Pakistan Minorities Alliance). Bhatti is Shahbaz Bhatti’s brother, the Catholic Federal Minister for Minorities who was killed by terrorists in March 2011 in Islamabad. “The verdict of acquittal for Rimsha Masih is dedicated to my brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was so committed to the innocent victims of the blasphemy law “.

Paul Bhatti, visibly moved after the pronouncement of the court, said  “Rimsha’s acquittal is great news. I am very satisfied. It is a historic step for Pakistan. It is a ruling that launches two clear messages to the country. The first is for justice. We have confidence in our judicial system. It is important to believe in the rule of law. The second is for those who have used or intend to abuse the blasphemy law for personal purposes. It is clear that from now on every abuse will be punished, and will prevent so many innocent victims.”

Rimsha’s defense team was led by a  Muslim lawyer, Rana Hamid. The Catholic lawyer on the team, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry said, “The court recognized Rimsha’s innocence and the plot against her. It is the first time in the history of Pakistan that a prosecution process for blasphemy has ended in this way. This ruling will set a precedent and will be very useful for the future but also for other cases of blasphemy present today in the courts. ”

Rimsha in protective custody being led to the court for her trial

Rimsha’s family, currently in hiding, who expressed “happiness and emotion for the end of the ordeal.”

The “All Pakistan Minorities Alliance”, an NGO led by Paul Bhatti, is now relaunching the plan to form a “Mixed Commission”, with Christian leaders, experts, lawyers and Muslim leaders who can examine in advance cases of alleged blasphemy. The aim is to prevent the abuse of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law.

Ireland ‘contra mundum’

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Today, MercatorNet carried this review of the events surrounding and following from the death of Savita Halappanavar.

Ireland contra mundum – or more accurately, mundus contra Hiberniam – seems to be the burden of shrill, not to say lurid headlines circling the globe since Wednesday of last week, when the story broke about the tragic death of a pregnant Indian woman in a Galway hospital on October 28.

But the facts surrounding this sad case and the international media’s reading of them are disturbingly out of synch. The Irish Times set the agenda for interpretation when it broke the story under the headline, “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital”. The story being run around the world is not the sad story about an unfortunate woman’s death resulting from septicaemia caused by a miscarriage. It is a story about Ireland’s resistance to legislation allowing abortion and – in the commentariat’s view –why that resistance must now be abandoned.

What is disturbing about all this is the flight from reason and truth in the service of a propaganda campaign by Ireland’s – and the whole world’s — pro-abortion activists. Many of the facts surrounding the case are not at all clear, but one thing is certain: this tragic case is not the result of Ireland’s law protecting the unborn child. At issue is medical practice in a particular Irish hospital and whether or not the medical team involved in this case did everything they could do to save this woman’s life, as they were obliged to do by Irish law and the ethics of their profession.

Read more here.