Susan Gately
“The line in the proclamation ‘to cherish all the children of the nation equally’ is more relevant today than ever before,” said Dr Judy Ceannt, grandniece to the Proclamation signatory Eamon Ceannt, at a gathering of republicans and trade unionists on the anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Speaking at the demonstration outside Dublin’s GPO organised by ‘Cherish all the children equally’ and ‘Trade Unionists for Life’, Dr Ceannt noted how Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had said it was time “to put compassion at the centre of our laws” when calling for a yes vote in the upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment.
However, Dr Ceannt asked, “What is compassionate about killing the most vulnerable members of our society?”
The Carrick on Shannon GP continued: “Late abortions are gruesome and painful to the baby. Even at 12 weeks, during a surgical abortion you can see on the ultrasound that the baby is in distress until it dies.”
Insistence
Gina O’Brien, a Cork City trade unionist, echoed Dr Ceannt’s insistence that abortion is not health care, saying that abolishing Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn would not make women safer in pregnancy.
“The reality is that a doctor, confronted with a perfectly healthy woman with a healthy pregnancy, can be asked by law to either kill the unborn child, or ask someone else to do so,” Ms O’Brien said, adding that it was a duty of the trade union to protect members working in the health service who might come under pressure to perform or assist with abortions they oppose on conscience grounds.
Underlining the “inequality” of excluding men from the debate, she said many trade unionists supported the Right to Life but were forced to hide their views.
“Three years after the Marriage Referendum has society swapped one closet for another,” she asked.
Sinn Féin Deputy Peadar Tóibín said one of his difficulties with abortion “is that it discriminates”.
“By definition abortion means inequality of outcome, one baby makes it to term and another baby doesn’t,” he said.
“If you are from a minority sector of society you are far more likely to be aborted.”