The Supreme Court judgment in the X case was pilloried by anti-abortion campaigners because the court did not call medical witnesses. Yet two days ago, Pro-Life Ireland, through its PRO, Julia Heffernan in a letter to the editor, wrote "things are not true because the doctor says so . . . It is not good enough to stick our heads in the sand and pretend things are not the way they are, even if the doctor agrees with us" (their italics).
Prof William Binchy, legal adviser to the Pro-Life Campaign, had argued to the contrary. He wrote here on August 17th: "As a result of the Supreme Court's mistaken interpretation of law and medical practice in the X case [where no evidence from any psychiatrist or obstetrician was heard], it will be necessary to amend the Constitution to ensure that the law comes into line with the present ethical guidelines and practice."
Pro-Life Ireland's statement contradicts fundamental legal arguments on which the case against the X case judgment is based. In consequence, it undercuts the demand that constitutional change is required because of alleged shortcomings in that judgment. If doctors' opinions don't matter one way or the other, on that reasoning, the Supreme Court judgment to permit limited abortion is impeccable. Therefore, Ireland is entitled to legislate for locally available abortion.
Nothing indicates that Dr Derek Llewellyn-Davies (mentioned by me in a letter published on August 23rd) or his publishers, Faber and Faber, ignored statistics on abortion issued by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys in Britain for the years 1968-1988. In fact, the statistics Pro-Life Ireland cites against legalised abortion show not a rise, but a dramatic fall in British rates of legal abortion between 1968 and 1989. Annual rates in the first years increased by more than 100 per cent: from 25,195 in 1968, to 58,363 in 1969, according to its figures. Rates of increase between 1987 and 1988 measured approximately 0.009 per cent, or a difference of 207 in numbers. The doctor was correct.
Pro-Life Ireland equated a "rate" with a "number". In so doing, it misread, and may have misrepresented, the doctor it cites. The paragraph from which it quoted one sentence reads: "In nations where abortion laws have been made less restrictive, opponents of reform . . . foresaw a continually rising frequency of abortion. They were wrong. In Britain the number of abortions rose the first five years after the more liberal laws came into operation, but the rate has since fallen." (Italics are mine.)
Pro-Life Ireland used the last sentence only. Two paragraphs on, Dr Llewellyn Davies makes the statement it characterises as ". . .a diatribe against those who disagree with his opinion on abortion". His actual words read: "Unfortunately, [organisations opposing abortion] tend to publish selective, inaccurate statistics which make induced abortions appear far more dangerous than they really are, and some of their propaganda induces strong feelings of guilt amongst women who have had an abortion. This is an affront to the integrity of a woman who has sought an abortion only after careful thought, as most women do."
Britain's proximity enables the Irish healthcare system to look the other way in respect of the scandal of Ireland's rising abortion rates. It enables the system generally to evade responsibility which morally belongs to each one of us. No wonder our domestic medical figures shine.
Irish medical guidelines and practice build on a foundation of virtual reality, which uses, perhaps abuses, the British system in a parasitical way. If new legislation is built on current one-eyed practice, there is little chance of reducing the number of abortions, or stopping the scandalously high rates of late abortions.
Before the British Act was introduced, doctors and hospitals faced women suffering from self-induced or otherwise illegal abortions. The late gynaecologist Dr Solomons's memoirs recall in gory detail the dreadful cases he encountered in 20th century Dublin.
"A depressingly large number of women, young and old, were arriving in hospital casualty wards with massive bleeding, high septicaemia, punctured wombs and so on as the result of utterly desperate attempts at self-abortion or as the result of the work of the back-street abortionist, the only helper the woman had," one experienced Irish doctor wrote to me of that time.
"We do not hear so much about the carnage and deaths caused by such abortions nowadays," the doctor remarked, "except perhaps in regions like central America where such illegal abortions have to continue, but if [the anti-abortion] groups have their way we will surely see such death and damage recur."
A nurse told me of one case before the British Act, where a patient arrived with a prolapsed womb, which had ulcerated down her thighs half-way to her knees. Another nurse confided the location of a grave where a 26-year-old woman lies buried with her stillborn baby, having been warned not to conceive a second child because of kidney disease. Some stories from the rare 'aul times.
Pro-Life Ireland encourages women to believe that because all abortion is "wrong", it makes no difference whether you abort three days after you miss a period or six months after you conceive. Hence, the three times higher rate of late abortions for Irish women is among the intolerable consequences of promoting a blanket anti-abortion policy.
The thin academic distinction between direct and indirect abortion is enabled only because we are next door to Britain. In reality, indirect abortion is permitted, because it happens over there. The more women who travel over at ever later stages of pregnancy, the plumper is the moral monopoly of blanket anti-abortionists here at home. Such is the cost of complacency: for some, the price is way too high.
mruane@irish-times.ie