Madam, – Given the justifiable outcry about the erosion of Irish sovereignty through the imposition of the EU/IMF rescue package, expressed most eloquently in your moving Editorial “Was it for this?” (November 18th), I am surprised that there was barely a murmur of concern in advance of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights as to whether Ireland’s laws protecting unborn human life are contrary to the “human rights” of women who travelled to England to obtain abortions.
The determination by a foreign court of such a crucial moral issue constitutes a huge infringement of Irish sovereignty and self-determination. The decision itself, that Irish law did indeed violate the European Convention on Human Rights’ Article 8 right to “respect for private and family life” of the pregnant woman suffering from cancer, essentially constitutes a finding that one person’s right to “respect for private life” outweighs another person’s right to life itself.
In addition to being manifestly incorrect and unjust, this is the type of decision that the Irish people alone, whether through referendum or legislation, should take.
The protection of the right to life of the unborn in Article 40 of the Irish Constitution, and of the equal right to life of the mother, represents the democratically expressed wish of the Irish people. No right can be more fundamental than the right to life. If foreign courts and powers see fit to abrogate that right, does that not strike at the very foundations of Irish society? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Few politicians in Ireland want to grapple with the abortion issue, especially when the airports are open. Legislation can be avoided by simply doing nothing. The Supreme Court and now the European Court of Human Rights made careful rulings.
The whiff of political cowardice and hypocrisy is in the air. All TDs and Senators should have a free vote on this issue. Now is the time to legislate for a very literal compliance with the law. I have experience of some of those campaigning on one side doing a swift about-turn and off to England when circumstance came calling. –Yours, etc,
Madam, – Am I correct in believing that we will soon have much less restrictive abortion legislation because the Irish people were misled in 1983 by dubious forces and by ill-informed “experts” into passing a wholly unnecessary constitutional amendment? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights on the Irish State’s failure to properly implement the constitutional right to abortion must be welcomed.
I would encourage readers to ask all canvassing politicians in the coming months how their government would make right the egregious wrong that has been perpetrated on these women and many others. I would further ask them to investigate when their prospective candidate intends to extend these rights to all women, not just those whose own life is put seriously at risk by continuing a pregnancy. We cannot allow our reproductive rights to be neglected and diminished any longer, despite the State’s negligence over a period of decades.
Our failure to conduct a mature, sensitive, and compassionate debate on this subject constitutes one of the greatest failures of modern Irish society. No woman should have to experience the extreme mental, financial and logistical stress that comes with the enforced exportation of our termination needs to countries like Britain and the Netherlands; no woman should have to beg friends and family for funding, go to moneylenders, spend a lonely and terrifying plane journey wondering what awaits them, or endure a long night alone and bleeding in a hotel far from home.
We live in a country where women can still be denied contraception (including emergency contraception) on the grounds of “conscience” and where the Catholic church has dominated our discussions on termination for far too long. The seizure last year of more than 1,000 separate packages of Misoprostol and Mifepristone surely illustrate the desperate lengths to which Irish women are forced to go to without access to safe, state-provided termination care.
I urge all of us to exercise empathy for the thousands of women affected by the need for a termination each year, to remember that a termination is never a procedure undertaken lightly or without much consideration, and accordingly to open this debate up beyond the “worst-case scenarios” of the recent European Court of Human Rights ruling.
Nobody regards abortion as a “good” thing, but there is certainly one thing a great deal worse and more immoral than it; that is, forcing women to carry unwanted foetuses against their will. – Yours, etc,