Perhaps I should be flattered that I was mentioned by Medb Ruane on four occasions in her recent column (Psychiatry Excluded on Abortion, February 1st.), writes Patricia Casey. However, Ms Ruane's piece is factually incorrect in a number of respects and is laced with insinuation.
Her central thesis appears to be that the professional body representing psychiatry was excluded from deliberations on the abortion issue and that those psychiatrists who gave did evidence, among them myself, were biased.
The most salient inaccuracy is her statement in the second paragraph "a key expert group was excluded". If Ms Ruane had familiarised herself with the terms of the All-Party Oireachtas Committee hearings before writing her column, she would see that nobody was deliberately excluded. In fact the opposite was the case.
Submissions were invited in writing and when the oral hearings began, requests for oral presentation were also invited.
If the official body representing psychiatry in Ireland, the Irish Division of Psychiatry, had made such a request, undoubtedly it would have been heard and there has been no suggestion that any such request was turned down.
In fact, the Irish Division of Psychiatry has never taken up a public position on abortion, although the debate on holding another referendum has been raging since 1992. The most likely reason for this gap is that like all specialities, there would be division on the issue.
If Ms Ruane feels she has a quibble, and her outpouring on February 1st suggests this, she should not direct it to the all-party committee or to me.
A further error is Ms Ruane's clear inference that the committee restricted psychiatric expertise to four individuals.
However, on reading the transcripts of the hearings, it is clear that none of them claimed to represent any position other than our own clinical and professional position, although Ms Ruane is under the misapprehension that Prof Anthony Clare did represent the position of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the body to which the Irish Division of Psychiatry is linked.
Indeed Prof Clare expressed his view that psychiatry was invoked as a quasi-compassionate route by which to achieve abortion saying: if I were to summarise, I would say that the only reason. . . you will find psychiatry involved in this is because . . . we have been drawn in to get people off the hook over this issue. Who better than to get the psychiatrist to tell you that if this is refused, this woman will kill herself. No such claim can be made with any certainty."
Furthermore, the only psychiatrist invited to give evidence to the committee was my colleague Prof Clare, of whom Ms Ruane speaks approvingly; the others wrote and requested that they be heard.
In relation to my appearance before the committee, I did not even address it on the substantive issue of abortion as implied by Ms Ruane - clearly she had not bothered to read the joint submission by myself and Breda O'Brien, her colleague in The Irish Times, which dealt with crisis pregnancy and methods of reducing the numbers of women seeking abortion.
In my capacity as one of the organisers of the 5,000 Too Many conference in 1998, we had to write and request an oral hearing which we were granted.
Ms Ruane claims that the House of Lords independent inquiry into the abortion act by Lord Rawlinson "masquerades as professional psychiatric evidence in the all-party report".
However, Rawlinson is not indexed in the final report although there is reference to it tucked away in the Church of Ireland submission and fewer than 100 words are devoted to it in the 592-page appendix. To suggest that it has played a large part in the deliberations of the all-party committee is bordering on the hysterical and indeed Ms Ruane in her column has given it more prominence that the all-party report.
She also makes reference to the "minority view" of the Finnish study regarding the link between suicide and abortion, yet it is unclear what she means since, if she simply read the original paper and the subsequent correspondence, she would see written: "Regardless of the aetiology, our study indicates that some women are at risk of suicide after an induced abortion."
In mentioning me personally, it is quite extraordinary that Ms Ruane should identify a British psychiatrist, Dr Margaret Oates, for whom in 1981 I worked as registrar. She appears to be suggesting that as a result I should hold a pro-choice position. If she had noted that subsequently, having been a researcher in the Medical Research Council Suicide Research Unit in Edinburgh and continuing my research into this area in Ireland, I have been lead to a different position, her comments would be fair and in context.
It is even more surprising that after such in-depth investigation of my career, the only slur she can come up with is my failure to be present when President Mary Robinson received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1994. This is a particularly McCarthyite smear since it suggests I was somehow being disloyal to the President of Ireland. It is unworthy of The Irish Times.
Ms Ruane should withdraw her factual inaccuracies; she should nuance her many misleading remarks, especially those which carry innuendo, and she should apologise for the gratuitous and personalised attack on myself, merely because she disagrees with my viewpoint.
The high standards of the paper of record demand no less and her over-reaction to the referendum is not conducive to the calm debate for which everybody has called.
Patricia Casey is professor of psychiatry at the Mater Hospital