Sir, - David Carroll (September 16th) asserts a number of "simple, obvious and indisputable facts" regarding the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1983, and its subsequent interpretation by the Irish courts. He fails to mention a number of salient points about the background to that amendment.
There would have been no such amendment if the pro-life movement had not insisted on one. It did so on the utterly spurious basis that the judiciary might introduce abortion by the back door or that the Oireachtas might legislate for abortion. All of the considerable evidence at that time - in the form of judicial pronouncements - indicated that the judiciary viewed the right to life as "a sacred trust" which was already adequately guaranteed by the Constitution. The idea that the Oireachtas might legislate for abortion was ludicrous.
The wording of the Eighth Amendment was proposed and supported by the pro-life movement. It always knew the amendment would come to be interpreted by the courts. If not, why did it bother with the anti-information litigation against clinics and student unions?
Insofar as those words purported to ban abortion, the pro-life movement got it wrong in 1983. What makes it so right now?
Constitutional amendments do not prevent crisis pregnancies. Nor do they prevent abortions. Why then, are those who style themselves "pro-life" so obsessed with the Constitution? Why do they always assume that they - more than anyone else - know what the Irish people really want?
If the people are so opposed to the courts' interpretation of the amendment, why did thousands take to the streets urging that the High Court decision in the "X" Case be overturned by the Supreme Court? Why did the people not take to the streets over the High Court decision in the "C" Case?
Surely this is as much about power as it is about life. - Yours, etc.,
Donncha O'Connell, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.