Senators call for investigation into "illegal" advice offered by the IFPA.

During today's Order of Business in the Seanad several senators raised the issue of illegal and dangerous advice being offered by the IFPA under the Crisis Pregnancy Program. I have already blogged about the actual issue, it was originally exposed about a week and a half ago by Gemma O'Doherty in the Irish Independent. Several senators raised the subject yesterday during the Order of business. It was first raised by Senator Marc MacSharry who welcomed the proposed investigation. Of course he was barley finished speaking when the leading campaigner for abortion in Ireland and leader of the Labour Party in the Seanad (and serial failed Dáil candidate) Ivana Bacik stood to speak. She wanted to talk about non-taxpayer funded organizations, rogue organizations, as she likes to call them, that should be investigated. Perhaps she feels that a proper investigation would be diluted if others weer investigated. This is the oldest trick in the civil service book but Sir Humphrey she ain't. The next person to speak was Senator Rónán Mullen and despite several interruptions by human rights superstar and the real President of Ireland, Senator David Norris made the point that women's lives were endangered and Senator Bacik was trying to minimize that fact. Senator Norris in his usual histrionic manner was going on about impugning named people despite no actual people being named. Did I mention that he has a biography out about how he singlehandedly won human rights for all people?
There were many good contributions from quite a few senators. It would be unfair to name any more senators without mentioning them all but you can read the transcripts here. Other topics are covered too.

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.