Tough love in hard times

RADIO REVIEW:NOW THAT we have a 1980s-style recession – sorry, downturn – maybe we'll see a return to 1980s social debate, like the endless rows we used to have about abortion and the right to life. Let's hope not, I thought, after listening to a compelling interview with US doctor Susan Wicklund (The Interview, BBC World Service, Saturday).

Susan Wicklund is an abortionist, a word that can’t roll off the tongue without producing an after-wave of spit. Expectoration is, sadly, only the half of it when it comes to performing abortions in the US, where the extreme end of the pro-life lobby displays a militancy worthy of the Taliban.

As a physician known to carry out abortions, Wicklund would frequently wake up to lines of protesters outside her house. “Wanted” posters appeared in the neighbourhood bearing her name and photograph. She used disguises to get safely into the clinics where she worked and even resorted to carrying a gun. “Every time I turned on my car, I wondered would it explode,” she recalled matter-of-factly.

Wicklund had an abortion in the 1970s – “I wasn’t ready to be a parent” – and recalled her grandmother describing how her best friend bled to death during a botched illegal abortion early in the last century. Women will always resort to abortion, whether it is illegal or not, went her argument, so it is better to make it legal and safe.

Of all the abortions she carried out, only one caused her regret. A woman came to her saying she had been raped. During the procedure, Wicklund realised the foetus was two weeks older than had been thought. She told the woman, who only then realised she had become pregnant as a result of sex with her husband rather than the rape.

Wicklund only performs first-trimester abortions, but defends the rights of others to treat women later in their pregnancies. Thanks to modern science, a child born at 22 weeks has survived, and scientists have established that a foetus around this age can experience pain. So when, asked interviewer Carrie Gracey, did she think the cut-off point for abortions was? “It’s for each individual to decide,” came the less than satisfactory response.

Gracey pressed on. What if pregnant women thinking of abortion went instead to full term and gave up their children for adoption? Wicklund countered that there were hundreds of thousands of children already needing to be adopted, many with special needs, “and I don’t see people stepping up to the plate” to adopt them. “We need to take care of the living, breathing, human beings that we have on the planet right now.”

Joe Duffy (Liveline, RTÉ

Radio 1, weekdays) came back from his summer break with tales of dodgy clerics, greedy banks and sundry woes from post-boom consumers. First up was Barbara, who handed a “man of the cloth” her entire SSIA – €20,000 – after he promised to turn it into €100,000 by investing in “sports events”. The part-time preacher, who has even done the odd turn on RTÉ, convinced her he could achieve great returns through his “sports investment” scheme. Sad to relate, her minister friend’s financial dabbling has reduced her nest egg to €4,000 and two friends who also invested have been left with nothing. They’ve taken a High Court case and won but still haven’t been repaid.

You didn’t know whether to wince or laugh out loud. Barbara told us her guru had “a great mind, a great way with words”. She put her mistake down to a “naive faith” in the man. He came over all “charismatic and convincing”, vowing to make money not just for her but for charitable causes. “This touched a soft spot of mine,” she sighed.

In keeping with the times, Joe gave tough love. Was her clerical consultant not regulated? Did she not hear that line from the end of the financial ads about the value of shares going down as well as up? Barbara, showing she had learned, well, not very much, whispered that this was different; hers was not a share product but “an investment”.

Callers were generally unsympathetic; one spat out the line about “a fool and his money” and predicted the only place Barbara would see her cleric on RTÉ was Crimeline.

And so it continued through the week. Listeners rang to bemoan the fall in value of their pensions. Others complained about undelivered magazine subscriptions. A man moaned on about a Ricky Tomlinson gig that lasted only “10 or 15 minutes”. “Alright, I’ve exaggerated a bit,” he admitted when challenged. Someone contacted the programme to say they hadn’t been paid for their Spanish student but then the cheque arrived just before the programme started, so that was alright, then. Joe gave his production team a clap on the back and went back to talking about falling pensions and collapsing banks.

Indeed, you couldn’t turn on the radio last week without running into an economist issuing dire prognostications for the economy. David McWilliams, Colm McCarthy, Alan Ahearne and, of course, George Lee – they were all wheeled out to cheerlead the recessionary chorus. The effect was wearying – there are only so many ways to beat yourself over the head. If only purveyors of the dismal science weren’t so prolific.

Quentin Fottrell is on leave