Are we all to be taken for fools? After twenty years of public debate on the most complex social issue, do the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party seriously think that they can lead us back down the old road of smear, threat and scare-mongering on abortion? The mask slipped yesterday with snide accusations across the floor of the Dáil that personalities, like Ms Liz McManus, and parties, like the Labour Party, are pro-abortion. Maybe it is time to set the facts straight.
Are we all to be taken for fools? After twenty years of public debate on the most complex social issue, do the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party seriously think that they can lead us back down the old road of smear, threat and scare-mongering on abortion? The mask slipped yesterday with snide accusations across the floor of the Dáil that personalities, like Ms Liz McManus, and parties, like the Labour Party, are pro-abortion. Maybe it is time to set the facts straight.
There was no abortion at all in Ireland in 1983 when two competing contenders for Taoiseach - Mr Charles Haughey and Dr Garret FitzGerald - caved in to intensive lobbying from the Pro-Life Movement to hold the first referendum. There was to be no abortion at all. The mother and the unborn were given an equal right to life in the Constitution. And with reminders of yesterday, members of the Fine Gael Party were characterised as abortionists when they claimed, with foresight, that the wording intended to ban abortion could, eventually, make it lawful.
That prediction came to pass in 1992 when the country was convulsed with the X case. X was a 14-year-old suicidal girl who was raped. Her parents were injuncted by the High Court from bringing her to England for an abortion. There was a palpable sigh of relief when the Supreme Court removed the injunction and, in a later judgment, ruled that abortion was lawful where there was a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, including the risk of suicide. This lead to the second, third and fourth referendums on abortion in 1992 when voters accepted the right to travel and information, and rejected ruling out the risk of suicide.
There are 21 days to go now in the fifth abortion campaign and there is uncertainty about the outcome. The Taoiseach has threatened, as did his predecessor in 1992, that the next Government will legislate for the X case if voters do not row-back on the suicide option. There is no consensus on the proposal within the political parties, the medical profession or even the anti-abortion movement.
The Taoiseach would do well to remember, however, that there is one big difference in the debate today. There is black, white and, with the lessons learned over twenty years, a growing grey. Thousands of Irish women have had abortions in England over the last 20 years. The wisdom of putting more words into the Constitution is questioned. And, most important of all, the complexity of abortion in the wake of the X and C cases is better understood. There is need for a genuine debate on the current referendum as it affects the physical and mental lives of women, as well as the unborn.
The bitter descent into name-calling in the Dáil yesterday is unworthy. The Taoiseach tried to distance himself from the outrageous comments of the Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, but he did not condemn him. Having spent almost five years trying to establish his own bona fides on abortion, the Taoiseach lapsed into scare-mongering himself. His call for a calm and rational debate rings hollow, indeed.