Sir, – I am pro-choice so I cannot deny the Mater hospital the right to be the same; it’s just that our choices will be different. – Yours, etc,
ALAN GRAINGER,
Ferndale Road,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Fr Kevin Doran, member of the board of directors of the Mater hospital, worries that the abortion legislation may impinge on hospitals having their own “ethos” (Front page, August 7th). I am sure I am not alone in believing that if a hospital is entirely funded by the State, then the “ethos” should be the law of the land. This arrangement, unlike the current situation, would have the added bonus of being consistent with the democratic process, whereby the law of the land is formulated by democratically-elected legislators.
It is my opinion that the status quo in Irish society, whereby the majority of hospitals and schools are run by boards appointed and controlled by religious entities, is a perverse anachronism, and is inconsistent with the idea of both democracy and equality. – Yours, etc,
VINCENT KELLY,
Vernon Wood,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Sir, – So a Catholic priest who is a member of the Mater hospital’s board of governors has decided that hospitals should be able to frame procedural rules independent of the laws of this country, based on what they decide is a moral framework (Front page, August 7th)? It sounds like a nice idealism.
However, to apply Fr Kevin Doran’s principle of free moral agency to other institutions one quickly sees by inference how impracticable and even dangerous it is. Imagine an Ireland where, for example, capitalist financiers could make their own rules based on an ethos of material accumulation, unfettered by law or State governance? What a mess we could end up in. Or an example closer to Fr Doran’s situation: suppose a zany cult believing in self-mortification was allowed to choose what to teach children in schools? What kind of repressed and deluded society would grow from that? Hard to imagine, I know.
But it’s not money or lifestyle we are talking about in this case – it’s people’s lives. Better to leave hospital protocol to people who act on evidence, not fading superstitions. – Yours, etc,
CONOR D GRAHAM,
St Augustine Street, Galway.