Pro Life Campaign National Seminar 2012

The Pro Life Campaign had its national seminar earlier today. The room was packed and people were treated to a series of great speakers. Not just Matt Mooney who I saw speak earlier in the week but also Dr Patricia Casey, Dr Berry Kiely, Caroline Simons, Professor William Binchy. Joe McCarroll and Cora Sherlock spoke on behalf of the Pro Life Campaign. The full story is found here.

The unborn is a human being and worthy of protection

Fintan O'Toole is fairly typical of a class of person that exists in Ireland today. Opinionated, vocal, bitter against the Church, contrarian and most of all pseudo intellectual. He had an article, an opinion piece in last Tuesday's Irish Times. The actual article was laced with inaccuracies and fallacies. William Binchy, legal adviser to the Pro Life Campaign wrote an excellent rebuttal piece for the Irish Times. Among other points he says:

Using emotive language, he identifies the implications of recognising the equal worth and dignity of every human being: “Over the last decade, the equivalent of the entire population of Limerick city has been murdered. ... Of course, the premise which he is inviting the reader to accept is that the termination of the lives of unborn children should not be the source of serious concern because unborn children, on account of their immaturity, are less worthy of respect and protection. ... Yet the central human rights value – the equal worth and dignity of every human being – is rejected by Fintan’s analysis. Human beings in the early stages of their life, when they are at risk of abortion on a “right to choose” test, are in his eyes not human beings “in exactly the same sense” as Mandela.

I would like to reproduce the entire article here but newspapers are funny about that kind of thing so the original article can be accessed via this link.  I think Professor Binchy does a very good job at demolishing not just O'Toole's article but the entire pro abortion argument. He attacks it from first principle, that is to say, he makes us ask what is a human being and is it ever acceptable to kill one just because they are at an early stage of development. If we believe the unborn is a human person then they deserve to be protected as much as Mandela or Lady Gaga. If they are not a human person then Fintan needs to be honest and tell us when, in his opinion does human personhood start. I'd like to see him answer that, he may go gaga pretty quickly himself.
It's also worth noting that on the same night as that article appeared Vincent chaired a debate on the Vincent Brown Tonight show on TV3 about the topic of abortion. His partisan article was not mentioned but it was pretty evident from his grandstanding and hostile tone towards Rónán Mullen and Caroline Simons what side he was on. Despite this Senator mullen and Caroline Simons did very very well. The TV debate can be accessed here.

Pro Life Stereotype.
All pro lifers are religious nutters, old men who tell women what to do with their bodies ...
Err, no actually. Take a look at some of the faces in this protest outside the Dáil the other day. Young, articulate (and can I say as a man, very attractive) women who know that abortion is a bad thing, that it hurts women and destroys lives. Photos are via the Pro Life Campaign website. 
The photocall 

Here with some women from womenhurt.ie who know first hand how abortion harms women.

Caroline Simons Pro Life Campaign Spokesperson talking to RTÉ