WITH the closure of the vasectomy clinic in Letterkenny General Hospital last weekend after - it was picketed by protesting hospital doctors, the Diary is happy to announce the formation of SPUS; the Society for the Protection of Unspent Semen.
We have long felt that sperm is a particularly vulnerable life form. In comparison, foetuses are a relatively sturdy, virile species, with tiny arms and legs and all sorts of protective devices within the body to keep it warm and fed and happy, and the egg is a cheery, independent little fellow, so hardy that it can - be transplanted from one body to the next.
But the most abused and neglected of creations, whose very existence is an endless cycle of holocaust, massacre and wanton waste is, needless to say, the humble sperm.
Thank heavens that in Donegal the sperm is not so neglected as it is elsewhere. In Letterkenny hospital there are people like Dr Leo MacAuley, a consultant obstetrician no less, who was reported in the Donegal People's Press as saying the doctors of the hospital were completely against the vasectomy unit because hospitals were supposed to be places where life was saved, "not taken away".
Emission Impossible
Isn't it grand altogether that after years in the medical profession, this fine fellow is able to say that to prevent the emission of spermatozoa seems to be the same as the taking away of life?
Wonderful to have such a scrupulous person working at the State's expense, and meanwhile picketing against the State supplying certain services to patients.
Needless to say, we can be sure that the Department of Health will take no action against this excellent chap, whom we nominate today as the founder-chairman of SPUS. And why not? He has outSPUCed SPUC. SPUC has been telling us for years that life began at the moment of conception, now this pioneering obstetrician brings us the news: life begins before conception and inside the male's body. Top that one, SPUC.
It is clear that SPUS will have to draw up ethical guidelines about sperm. Since by the MacAuley definition the non-expenditure of semen is morally tantamount to murder, so it must follow that all sperm - which do not cause impregnation are also the victims of murder.
This is a lot. Trillions a night. All those little sperm either starting off on their thrilling journey and being shunted into cul-de-sac sperm-park nor'-nor'-east of the seminal vesicles, there to be absorbed by the body which made them, or flying off into the great unknown.
And it is a well-known fact that of the 10 million spermatozoa which leap into a woman's body, only one or two will survive the arduous journey north. The little corpses of the others line the wayside between open air and the fallopian tubes, like the abandoned dead of a particularly brutal polar expedition. Excuse me, murmurs a tiny, wilting sperm, I am just going out for a while, and so saying exits to his certain end.
Mission to Semen
Who thinks about these little fellows, slain by mankind's thoughtless fecundity and meeting their end without the benefit of a priest? It is a deeply troubling prospect. SPUS is therefore calling for a minister of the Catholic church to be present on every occasion when a male body emits semen, so that he can bless, baptise and give extreme unction to the doomed spermatozoa.
Henceforward, whenever a man lets a woman have a few million of his sperm, there should ideally be alongside them a simultaneous sung Requiem Mass for the repose of the souls of the sperm which didn't make it.
A choir and selected priests could be nominated for this duty, though I dare say screens will be required. Catholic priests, as we know, are immune to provocation by the sight of the unclothed female form, but some are perhaps marginally more susceptible.
Sung Masses during copulation could soon be a norm within the Catholic marriage, but alas, we in SPUS are all too aware that not everybody in Ireland is Catholic enough to make the necessary clerical arrangements to cover eventualities whenever sperm is produced.
We are thinking about flying-pickets from our youth wing, called SD, Sperm Defence, touring places like Phoenix Park and Dollymount Strand, where sperm fountains through the night, only to be doomed to confinement in condoms.
Cold-blooded murder. Just think of all those little spermatasouls winging their way heavenwards moments after they leap into the world, and without the benefit of a last confession or anything. Our SD lads will sort the culprits out, pronto.
Happily, Dr Leo MacAuley, that quite splendid consultant obstetrician who has done so much to ensure that the State which employed him should not provide a vasectomy service for its citizens and who might thereby help bring about heaven knows how many unwanted pregnancies - now there's an achievement to relish, worthy of SPUS's highest award for gallantry: a papal cross adorned with seminal vesicles, fallopian clusters and massed fertile ovaries - is not alone.
Up there supporting him in the north-west, we have the leader of Independent Fianna Fail, Harry Blaney, who said the clinic should be "suspended entirely on the basis that other services are badly needed in the North Western Health Board".
Agreeing with him, Leitrim councillor Larry McGowan described vasectomy as an "unChristian" practice.
No Wriggling Out Of It
Since SPUS regards all sperm as equally precious and possessed of immortal souls, we are opening sperm hotlines throughout the land where men worried about the future of their semen may take advice from priests on 24-hour call.
We are seeking allies from SPUC and Sinn Fein. One IRA volunteer who modestly admitted he had been involved in the human-bomb operations which brought glory to his cause and countless English and Irish deaths, strongly opposed legalising abortion at a recent Sinn Fein gathering.
Glory Be! We are in a new era! An end to sperm abuse!