(The Nationalist, 1 March 2002)
Voters in the Irish Republic will soon be asked to decide by referendum on a proposal to amend the Constitution by inserting a pro-life clause. In Northern Ireland, a similar issue is being pursued by asking that the new Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland should ensure that the human rights of the unborn are protected in law, policy and practice.
In the Republic, this issue has been voted on twice before without a satisfactory outcome. The Supreme Court, in a mystifying judgement, negated the people’s will expressed in a referendum. So we are trying to get it right this time.
Some professionals have expressed their views on matters related to the topic:
1) The Irish Medical Council, in 1992, and the Irish Medical Organization, in 1993, stated that abortion is never needed to save the life of the mother.
2) UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, stated in its annual report in 1994 on The State of the World’s Children that Ireland is the safest country in the world for women giving birth, and for children under five years of age, and that Ireland has the best maternity services in the world.
3) Dr. Patricia Casey, Professor of Psychiatry in UCD, said that pregnancy reduces the risk of suicide in women by a factor of six.
In addition, some pregnant rape victims have said they believe, at a subconscious level, that if they can go through the pregnancy, they will have conquered the rape. Going through with it shows they are better than those who brutalized them.
Despite the importance and weight of those views, I believe the heart of the matter is the question of what it is we are talking about when we speak of a woman being pregnant. What is she pregnant with? Is it human or not? Medical science tells us that between conception and birth there is a continuing process. There is no stage between the two at which there is a change from non-human to human. The genetic make-up of the newly-conceived is no different from that of the ninety year old. What is human at the end of the forty weeks – or at the end of ninety years – was human at the start.
What is a human being? It is someone like you and I. The foetus is a human being with potential, not a potential human being. It deserves the same protection in law as any other human being.