Brendan O’Regan
Abortion reigns as the main topic of media controversy with Ray D’Arcy playing a central figure in last week’s viewing, writes Brendan O’Regan
I was gobsmacked. A few weeks ago the Ray D’Arcy Show was carpeted by the Broadcasting Authority (BAI) over bias on the abortion issue, the second time in six months. Last Thursday the show repeated almost exactly the same offence.
So, who is it that has such contempt for the BAI – D’Arcy himself, the Ray D’Arcy Show, RTÉ itself or all of the above? This seems to me a contempt for fairness, balance, impartiality and justice… concepts you’d expect to be as universally popular.
The item in question was an interview with Gaye and Gerry Edwards about their story of getting a diagnosis of ‘fatal foetal abnormality’ and their opting for a termination. A web search will give details of the well-aired story. Yes, their story was well told and heart-breaking (not least because of the fate of the baby) and they were in no way denying the humanity of the baby, naming him for example, but in a way maybe that made it worse.
Like the similar interview with Graham and Helen Linehan that was the subject of the upheld complaint, it wasn’t just a personal story, it was also part of a campaign for a change in a law, for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment which gives equality to mother and baby. D’Arcy read out copious amounts of last week’s UN report castigating Ireland for supporting this equality in law. I don’t recall a UN report condemning the cruelty, inhumanity and degradation of abortion procedures.
And in case we didn’t get the message, D’Arcy replayed parts of an interview with a representative of this UN committee from that afternoon’s News at One.
Statement
‘Excerpts’ from a statement of the Pro-Life Campaign were read out, but as with the programme featuring the Linehans this was a ‘cursory’ treatment of the opposing viewpoint.
Gerry Edwards was back in RTÉ for that night’s Prime Time and this time he was more clearly identified as a campaigner for the group Terminations for Medical Reasons (referenced in passing as TFMR on the earlier show). He thought that because we were ‘in’ the UN this wasn’t a case of an ‘outside’ body trying to impose anything on us.
Tracy Harkin of the Every Life Counts group, on the other hand, believed a progressive society would treat all people equally and protect the lives both of mothers and their babies.
She conveyed an all-inclusive humanity all the more impressive as she had also got a ‘life limiting condition’ diagnosis, and now her daughter Kathleen Rose was nine years old. It struck me that humanity is inherently a life limiting condition that none of us will survive, and that any line you might draw during a person’s short or long life is purely arbitrary.
That UN report prompted much media coverage – it was first published Tuesday morning of last week and Newstalk’s Lunchtime show featured Colm O’Gorman from Amnesty welcoming the report and Tom Finnegan of the Iona Institute criticising it, though both were interviewed separately.
Finnegan was a model of clear thinking and incisive debating, keeping a cool head despite intensive questioning from presenter Jonathan Healy. He never let the listener lose sight of the humanity and human rights of the ‘little baby’ at the heart of all these debates. He also pointed out how wrong it was to be depriving a human being of rights based on how long they were likely to live.
Survivor
Before the UN judgement, the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk also featured an excellent interview with abortion survivor Melissa Ohden. Kenny seemed really interested in her story and at the start said he previously assumed ‘abortion survivors’ were those women who had abortions that were traumatic.
Her story was quite moving, especially when she told of finally meeting her birth mother only a few weeks previously. This woman, forced into the abortion by her own mother, had never been told that her baby had survived the abortion attempt.
Now, there was something a UN committee could describe as ‘cruel and inhumane’, but they’re not interested because it doesn’t drive the required agenda.
Ohden got to describe the cruelty of the abortion procedure, the inhumanity of babies who survive being left to die, all in degrading and unpleasant detail, but welcome as we rarely get in the media an insight into what abortion actually is… a curious omission considering how prominent the topic.
Pick of the week
Ballaí Dhoire (Derry’s Walls)
TG4, Saturday, June 18, 7.15pm
Fearghal Mac Uiginn explores Derry’s monastic origins and identifies the circumstances behind the transition from monastic Derry to the plantation town of Londonderry in 1613.
Sunday Morning Live
BBC 1, Sunday, June 19, 10am
New. Naga Munchetty is joined by a panel of guests to discuss the moral and ethical issues of the day.
Saints vs Scoundrels
EWTN, Monday, June 20, 11am and Tuesday, 7.30pm
Southern author and devout Catholic Flannery O’Connor re-enacts a scene from her famous story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.