National Vigil for Life. June 8th. Merrion Sq. 3pm

Thousands of people are working hard to oppose the Government’s destructive abortion proposal. Thank you for playing YOUR part.

We simply must keep the effort up to stop this appalling legislation. As things stand, two psychiatrists, with an obstetrician on the sidelines, will be able to sign away the life of a child of a healthy mother. This is a travesty of good medicine.

There can be no question of pessimism on our side or resignation that all this is going to happen. We must oppose this at every step – before, during and after events in the Dáil and Seanad – and propose a positive alternative. We must never give up on the cause of human dignity.

So we urge you to do all you can to make the National Vigil for Life on 8th June a big success. This Vigil comes at the key moment with the Government producing the actual legislation. 

We must demonstrate the massive number of pro-life people in Ireland. Early June is a critical time and we need you to do everything that you can – now.Please get involved by attending yourself and also bringing as many others as possible.

Bring a carload or a busload! 

To organise a bus from your area, please telephone Denise on (087) 266 8702, Theresa on (085) 871 1100 or Maria on (085) 883 4636

You can order leaflets instantly to spread among family and friends here

For information on updates like the National Vigil For Life Facebook page and follow @natvigil4life on Twitter

Let's clear up a few things ...

Ireland has to legislate for the X Case ... yet there are huge flaws with this judgement. Ireland has to bring in abortion some European court told us after the ABC judgement ... well no actually they didn't. Don't take my word for it take the word of Dr Maria Cahill LLB, LLM, PhD.

The original article is available on the website of the Sunday Business Post but behind a paywall here. It has been reproduced on the Pro Life Campaign website here.

European court's abortion judgment not black and white

Dr Maria Cahill LLB, LLM, PhD

This article appeared in the print edition of the Sunday Business Post on 23rd September 2012

Anybody who claims, by reference to the decision in ABC v Ireland that Ireland is now compelled to legislate for abortion, arrives at their conclusion without much assistance from the judgment.
In fact, the court regularly uses 'mother' as a synonym for pregnant woman and 'her child' as a synonym for foetus. It rules that there is no right to an abortion under Article 8 of the European Convention, and, affirming its earlier ruling in Vo v France, holds that contracting states are entitled under the convention "to choose to consider the unborn to be a person and to aim to protect that life".
Acknowledging that there is broad consensus across the contracting states towards allowing abortion on looser grounds than those required by Irish law, the court nevertheless allows Ireland a broad margin of appreciation because there is "no European consensus on the scientific and legal definition of the beginning of life".
The judgment declares that protecting unborn life, as the Irish Constitution does by means of Article 40.3.3, is "a legitimate aim" and also "necessary in a democratic society" such as Ireland, where the majority of people value the right to life of unborn children. On this basis – that the Irish constitutional protection for the right to life of the unborn is compatible with the convention – the court rejects the claims of Applicants A and B.
Applicant C, the Lithuanian national, was in remission from an unspecified cancer when she became pregnant. Understandably concerned and fearful for her health, she searched online to assess her medical risks and travelled to England for an abortion.
She did not seek legal advice in Ireland and there are conflicting claims on the question of whether or not she consulted her oncologist after she became pregnant. (None of the facts of the case was proven, so this remains undetermined.)
The court ruled that Ireland was in violation of the convention for lack of "an accessible and effective procedure" by which Applicant C could have known her medical and legal position.
So, the take-home messages are that Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution is compatible with the convention; that the prohibition on abortion is compatible with the convention, as the court confirmed by ruling against Applicants A and B; but that there is a problem of lack of clarity in cases where women face medical threats to their lives, as the court determined by finding in favour of Applicant C.
In order to address the lack of clarity that the court found to be problematic, we must therefore focus on the person in the circumstances of Applicant C; that is, on the woman who faces a medical risk to her life during her pregnancy.
While we cannot know exactly how the legal and medical professionals failed Applicant C because of the lack of evidence presented, we do know that Ireland is internationally recognised for the exceptional standard of care provided to women in the same position as Applicant C, and consistently ranks first or second in the world for lowest maternal mortality rates.
It is unquestionably the case that, had her cancer returned and had she sought treatment in Ireland, Applicant C's medical team would have acted to save her life, and her treatment plan could have included radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hysterectomy or any other treatment, notwithstanding that the unintended but foreseeable side-effect of such treatments may potentially have been the loss of her child.
The problem is then that there was no procedure that made this clear enough to her, with the result that she trusted her own Google-searched self-diagnosis, rather than trusting the care that she would have received at the hands of the medical professionals. Therefore, the clarification needed is that the current best practice two-patient model, whereby every medical effort is made to care for the lives of both mother and child, should be placed on a regulatory or statutory footing so that women in the circumstances of Applicant C can be assured that the medical care they need will be provided, to the highest international standard.
Still, those procedures are only useful if a woman has already entrusted herself to the care of a doctor.
For the sake of any other woman like Applicant C, who would turn in desperation to Google in order to self-assess her chances of dying, the Department of Health should initiate an information campaign highlighting that world-leading healthcare is provided to women and children as standard throughout pregnancy. It is an injustice to women such as Applicant C that our outstanding record of maternal health care is such a well-kept secret.
This approach does not necessitate giving legislative effect to the decision in the X case, which is legitimate because Applicant C did not argue suicidal ideation, and therefore her legal position is different to that of the woman in X.
Despite the great clarity with which Article 40.3.3 affirms that the right to life of the mother and the right to life of the unborn are "equal", the Supreme Court ruled in the X case that the right to life of the mother is "superior" to the right to life of the unborn which was labelled "contingent". This departure from the unambiguous constitutional position and the two-patient model it inspires resulted in the legal outcome that, if a mother threatens to commit suicide, the Supreme Court holds that she has the right to an abortion.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court reached this conclusion without hearing expert psychiatric evidence, nor could it have been aware of the huge volume of medical research which has emerged since and which shows that abortion is not a treatment for suicide, but may actually increase its risk.
Furthermore, in the X case there were no time limits placed on that right to abortion in case of suicide. Therefore, bringing clarity to the position held in the X case would entail legislating or regulating for an extremely liberal position on abortion – one that would allow all women who establish that they are at risk of committing suicide to have abortions right up until the moment they give birth.
Any temporal restrictions that the legislature would impose would be inconsistent with the X case, and would therefore add another layer of confusion to the current position, which is the exact opposite of what ABC exhorts. (To overturn the X case, and return to the original clear meaning of Article 40.3.3 which is expressly endorsed by the European Court of Human Rights in ABC, we could pass a constitutional amendment by referendum.)
Ultimately, since the European Court of Human Rights holds that there is no right to an abortion under the convention and that Ireland is entitled to protect the right to life of the unborn child, since the ABC case did not concern suicidal ideation, and since the X case does more to obscure than to clarify the legal position, the most reasonable, proportionate and effective way of responding to ABC v Ireland in order to afford clarity to those in the position of Applicant C is to regulate for the two-patient model – which is the current best practice in Irish hospitals and internationally celebrated.
Dr Maria Cahill is a lecturer in law at UCC

Kulturkampf.

Kulturkampf
Late 19th century Europe was not a very pleasant place for Catholics. Political activism by Catholics was discouraged, clergy were persecuted and very often exiled. The Minister for mis-Communications Pat Rabbitte said that it would be a regressive step if the Church dictated policy to the government. Pat Rabitte would much prefer that Unions would dictate policy. Pat was a union official back in the day and was well able to do that himself. He was president of the Union of Students in Ireland and later became an official and eventually National Secretary in the Irish transport and General Workers Union. Presumably he didn't dictate to Labour Party or other Ministers during his tenure, maybe they discussed the progress of the Mayo football team? The very language he uses is inaccurate and inflammatory. He seeks to poison the well as it were. 
Whatever your opinion on the Church it is still the moral guide for the vast majority of Irish people. Religious practice in Ireland is still high compared to many countries, more people go to Mass on a regular basis than participate in the political process. Far more people are Catholic and look to the Church for moral guidance than have ever voted for the Labour Party. The fact that someone would seek to silence such a large organization, one that plays such a large part in civic society is profoundly undemocratic. 
The Pro-Life Campaign weighed in fairly early, it's statement is below. 

Pro Life Campaign criticises Minister Rabbitte for attempting to suppress voices in abortion debate

27th  August 2012

The Pro Life Campaign has criticised the Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte over his remarks on RTÉ radio yesterday when he said he didn't welcome plans by the Catholic Church to play an active role in the abortion debate.
Cardinal Brady, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland said at the weekend that the Catholic Church would get involved in the abortion debate should the Government attempt to introduce abortion in the coming months.  In response Minister Rabbitte said ‘I would hope we’re not going to see a situation where one church decides to weigh into the campaign in the political sense.’
Commenting on Minister Rabbitte's remarks, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Cora Sherlock said:
“No church, faith-based group or any group should be intimidated out of the public arena when it comes to commenting on public policy, particularly on an issue as fundamental as the right to life. I would have thought it was partly the role of any Minister for Communications to encourage public discourse on important issues not try to suppress it.”
Ms Sherlock continued: “In the same interview, Minister Rabbitte also misleadingly implied that women were currently being denied necessary medical treatments because of the absence of abortion here.  This is a total misrepresentation of the facts. Ireland, without abortion, is a recognised world leader in safeguarding the lives of women in pregnancy.”

Well said Ms Sherlock. This was covered in today's Irish Times with some reactions from less hostile politicians.

Martin statement re abortion legislation "timely and welcome" say Pro Life Campaign

23rd July 2012

Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin's comments today, in which he said that legislation to allow abortion along the lines of the X case would effectively lead to abortion on demand "are timely and welcome", the Pro Life Campaign (PLC) have said.
In a statement, PLC spokesperson Dr Ruth Cullen said that Mr Martin's remarks "acknowledged the reality of what an Irish abortion regime would look like after legislation".
Dr Cullen said: "The past week has been heartening for those who still believe that when political parties make promises, they should stick by them.
"Last week we saw a significant number of Fine Gael TDs and Senators remind their party leadership of their election pledge to stand up for unborn human life. Today we saw Michéal Martin reaffirm his party's commitment to the same principle: that human life must be protected at all stages. Both developments were timely and welcome.
"At a time when Labour politicians are trying to bully the Government into believing the myth that the European court judgement in the  A,B and C v Ireland case obliges Ireland to legalise abortion, we welcome the clarity which both Mr Martin's comments, and the stance taken by backbench Fine Gael TDs, have brought to the debate.
"Mr Martin's statement, that legislation to provide for abortion along the lines of the X case would create "an open-door situation" which would be "very difficult to hold back" acknowledged the reality of what an Irish abortion regime would look like after legislation.
Dr Cullen also welcomed Mr Martin's acknowledgement that current Irish medical practice was about protecting both mother and child.
"Pro-abortion advocates and politicians have repeatedly attempted to obscure the fact that Ireland boasts world class medical care for pregnant women. In this context, Mr Martin's recognition that Irish doctors do everything they can "to preserve the life of the unborn and preserve the life of the mother" is very welcome.
"Ireland has consistently shown itself to be the safest place in the world to give birth in, and international statistics confirm this."

Are pregnant women denied medical treatment in Ireland?

To hear Clare Daly and her colleagues speak you'd think that women were being denied life saving medical treatment on a regular basis. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. The constitution is very clear, mothers and their unborn children have equal right to life and women cannot be denied treatment. To say otherwise is to cast aspersions on medical and legal professionals  throughout the country. Despite the many problems in our health services all people are agreement that once a person is in the system they get excellent care. Our nurses and doctors are among the best in the world and they do everything possible to care for mothers and their unborn babies.

Pro Life Campaign accuses sponsors of Private Members' Bill of misrepresenting facts in the abortion debate

The Private Members’ Bill backing abortion introduced in the Dáil today by Socialist Party TD Clare Daly “falsely creates the impression that women in Ireland are being denied necessary medical treatments in pregnancy because of the absence of abortion here”, Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro Life Campaign said.
Dr Cullen continued, “The reality is, however, that Ireland ranks as one of the safest countries in the world for pregnant women, safer than places like Britain or Holland where abortion is available on demand.
“The X Case decision, which Ms Daly proposes legislating for, heard no medical evidence and set no time limits for when an abortion could take place. So rather than being restrictive as claimed by its proponents, any legislation based on the X decision would amount to abortion on demand, with no regard for the humanity of the unborn child or the severe negative psychological after effects of abortion for many women. To ignore this reality in the name of “choice” does a grave disservice to women and their unborn children”.

Are judges capable of making decisions about psychiatry without hearing psychiatric evidence?

The infamous X Case judgement of 20 years ago was a very tragic situation. It involved a fourteen year old girl who became pregnant after being raped and if she had a right to travel to England for an abortion.
I was struck by an RTÉ documentary a few nights ago. In it journalist Fintan O'Toole made a very emotive remark, saying something along the lines that the state was going to make the girl involved bear a child for her rapist. Well at least he admitted that it was a child. Of course the problem with is his argument was that because the child was conceived in rape it had less of a right to live than a child not conceived in rape. That just isn't logical. It puts limits on the right to life.
My own opinion is that if the state was to really help victims of sexual assault it would make greater effort to catch, prosecute and convict those guilty. Right now Ireland has a 7% conviction rate for sexual assault. But, I digress ...
Here is an excellent article by Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro Life Campaign and printed in the Irish Times a few days ago.

Irish people deserve to hear the full truth about abortion

Dr. Ruth Cullen, The Irish Times, 5th March 2012

OPINION: TWO DECADES have passed since the Supreme Court ruled on the tragic X case.
The teenage girl at the centre of that case found herself in a horrific situation, and the Irish people’s overriding feeling at the time was one of immense sympathy for her.
Tragically, however, the decision of the Supreme Court seemed to be that, in order to show care for the girl, article 40.3.3, introduced specifically to protect the unborn child, had to be interpreted to allow abortion.
Over the last 20 years, there has been quite an amount of legal and political commentary on the ruling.
However, the evidence, or rather the lack of evidence, upon which the ruling was grounded has received less scrutiny.
The court decided that Ireland’s pro-life amendment permitted legal abortion in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother”.
It further ruled that these circumstances included the threat of suicide.
However, the court heard no medical evidence on the question of whether abortion protected women from suicide. And increasingly, we are seeing medical research demonstrating that far from protecting women from suicide, abortion increases the risk that women will suffer grave mental health problems.
For example, the widely publicised Finnish study, which appeared in the European Journal of Public Health, showed that there was a significantly increased risk of suicide among women who had abortions.
They were six times more likely to commit suicide compared with those who had their babies.
Research carried out recently by Dr David Fergusson in New Zealand and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that, compared to other women, there was a 30 per cent greater risk of mental health complications among women who had abortions.
This research undercuts the rationale at the very heart of the X case ruling, a rationale for which there had been little basis in the first place.
The Supreme Court also failed to hear evidence showing that Ireland is the safest place in the world for women to give birth.
Sadly, and alarmingly, politicians seeking to legalise abortion are inexcusably ignoring this fact even today. The TDs who introduced a private members’ Bill on abortion a fortnight ago have attempted to create the impression that pregnant women in Ireland are being denied medical treatment because of the lack of available abortion.
However, they are wilfully ignoring the evidence of UN statistics which show Ireland as a world leader in terms of maternal mortality.
What has been missing from this debate are the voices of women who regret their abortions.
Five years after the X case, Ireland was confronted with yet another traumatising abortion court case, the C case.
This involved a young girl who was pregnant as a result of rape. The High Court decided that it was in the best interests of the girl to permit the then Eastern Health Board, who had taken the girl into care, to take her to England for an abortion.
But in an interview in 2009 the woman at the centre of the case said that her abortion caused great pain and sorrow.
Her story and the stories of many other women who regret their abortions have been effectively silenced.
For too long they have been ignored and in some cases dismissed by those, such as the National Women’s Council, who claim to speak for all women.
The group recently appointed by the Government to examine Irish law on abortion, must take these stories into account, as well as the reality that Ireland is the safest country in the world in which to be pregnant.
It might also look at what happens in countries where abortion is made legal.
In the US, abortionist Dr Kermit Gosnell was recently charged with killing seven born babies and a 41-year-old woman on whom he had performed an abortion.
One of Gosnell’s victims, Robyn Reid, said that when she heard he had been charged with killing viable babies with scissors and giving a woman a lethal dose of painkillers, she felt sick.
“I didn’t know that he was such a monster doing this to everyone,” Reid said.
“I didn’t think it’d happened to somebody else. I thought it was just me.”
Stories like this and the recent revelations from Britain about abortionists performing sex-selective abortions reveal the full implications of what legal abortion entails.
Fine Gael gave clear commitments at the last election that “women in pregnancy will receive whatever treatments in pregnancy are necessary to safeguard their lives, and that the duty of care to preserve the life of the baby will also be upheld”.
Public opinion backs this stance.
When people have the distinction between necessary medical interventions during pregnancy and induced abortion made clear to them, in poll after poll, they reject abortion.
Twenty years after the X case, the Irish people deserve to hear the full story about abortion

Why the "X" case ruling was not good basis for law. 

Very few people would argue that Professor William Binchy does not know the law better than most. He has some very good insights regarding the "X" case judgement of 20 years ago, how it was flawed and how it has contributed to the confusion ever since.This article from yesterday's Irish Times sets out why.

Supreme Court 'X' case ruling not good basis for abortion law

The Irish Times – Thursday, January 19, 2012
WILLIAM BINCHY
OPINION: THE GOVERNMENT’S appointment of the expert group to address the implications of the European Court of Human Rights decision in A, B C v Ireland gives us all the opportunity to reflect on the issue of legal protection for mothers and their unborn children.
Ireland has the enviable record of being among the very safest countries in the world for mothers during pregnancy – safer than a range of countries with far greater economic resources that have wide-ranging legalised abortion.
The task for the expert group is to recommend legal support for doctors to continue to uphold the principle of doing the best possible for two patients – mother and child – during pregnancy. There are times when this can result in the death of the unborn child, which is not the intended purpose of the treatment of the mother.
The mistake that the Supreme Court made in the X case was to embrace a quite different principle: that it is permissible to target the unborn child and intentionally terminate his or her life.
The Supreme Court heard no expert psychiatric evidence. Over the 20 years since the X case, the international research has shown a different reality: studies have been published that identify abortion as involving a significant increase in suicidal ideation and outcome.
The work of Dr David Fergusson and his colleagues in New Zealand in 2005 is perhaps the most striking example, especially since Fergusson’s own personal value position favours the “right to choose”. Fergusson noted the difficulty he had experienced in getting his research published.
Contrary to sustained misrepresentation by advocates of legalised abortion, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights does not require Ireland to give legislative effect to the Supreme Court decision of 20 years ago. What it does require is that we in Ireland choose a law that is clear.
We could, choose to endorse what the Supreme Court did but, if we took that course, we would be introducing into our hospitals an abortion regime, requiring abortion at all stages of pregnancy up to birth – the Supreme Court mentioned no time limits, in stark contrast to the notorious decision of the United States supreme court in Roe v Wade.
The Supreme Court decision represents injustice to the child, since it requires that his or her life be intentionally terminated. That abortion targets the child is a sad fact we should not ignore, however unpalatable it is to contemplate.
In England, some children – a small number – survive abortion. The Confidential Inquiry into Maternal and Child Health reported in 2007 that 66 babies had survived in one year. The policy in these cases is not to attempt to resuscitate them but rather to ensure that they die. That is not the policy of Irish hospitals but, if abortion was authorised on the principles set out in the Supreme Court decision, it would have to apply.
I do not believe that Irish people would wish to introduce a legal regime where the destruction of a child’s life was the object of the exercise.
We are free to make a different choice: one that ensures that Ireland can continue to be in the forefront of maternal safety and that does not target the child.
If the debate is about medicine, then Ireland, with its world class record on the care and safety of mothers during pregnancy, is a living example of how respect for human rights maximises positive outcomes.
But in truth the debate is really about values – not just about personal autonomy and privacy but about the dignity and equal worth of every human being. It is not easy to justify the intentional termination of the life of another human being, however small, powerless or undeveloped she or he may be. The insight of human rights philosophy is that, regardless of the estimation of others, every human being has inherent dignity and worth.
An unborn child is a distinct human being, with a unique identity different from that of his or her parents. He or she is no more or no less “a lump of cells” than a mature person.
Of course many (though not all) mature people lead lives of impressive intellectual and interpersonal fulfilment that bear no comparison with the experience or capacity of an infant in its mother’s womb or in the care of its parents in the years after birth. To build a lethal distinction on these differences in capacity and experience is not consistent with respect for the core values of human dignity and equal worth.
I hope that the expert group will take a broad view of its mandate and will guide the Government on the range of social supports that parents need in the awesome challenges that they may face in rearing the children who depend on their care.