Do we accept democracy or not?

The point about the new Texas abortion law which few commentators seem to grasp is that Roe v. Wade divided America disastrously, and should never have formed a nationwide ruling on the subject of abortion.

It was passed by the Texas state legislature, in both upper and lower houses, by a democratic vote, and with the support of the state’s governor”

Lord Sumption, veteran justice of the British supreme court, pointed that out in his book on law and politics, Trials of the State. “I question,” he wrote, “whether [abortion] can be treated as a fundamental right, displacing legislative or political intervention.”

Jonathan Sumption, who is not against regulating abortion, nonetheless considers it erroneous that law should be made by judges: law, to be legitimate, should be made by elected legislators in a parliament. Roe v. Wade – enacted in 1973 – was seen as a law imposed, from on high, by lawyers: but law should be perceived as something democratically voted on by elected politicians.

Draconian

The Texas law has been widely condemned as draconian – no abortion may be carried out once a foetal heartbeat has been detected at around eight weeks – and Senator Michael McDowell even compared it to something the Taliban might produce. But this law was not forced through by men with AK47 rifles: it was passed by the Texas state legislature, in both upper and lower houses, by a democratic vote, and with the support of the state’s governor.

The question, to commentators, might be: do you accept democracy or not?

Roe v. Wade has always remained controversial, and it has emerged that ‘Baby Roe’, the late Norma McCorvey, had a very troubled life. Her narrative was exploited when she should have been helped and supported on a personal and practical basis.

Some states would be liberal, others conservative: but that’s democracy”

I remember hearing a wise American historian, Gertrude Himmelfarb, saying that abortion law should “be returned to the states’ legislatures”. That is, let each US state vote on its own law, rather than having it decided by a panel of judges in Washington. Some states would be liberal, others conservative: but that’s democracy.

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How fabulous to see that Miriam O’Callaghan, glamorous mother of eight, has now become a glamorous grandma, with the birth of her grandchild Éabha Anne. She’s “over the moon” about the baby, born to her daughter Alannah and husband Fiachra.

Congrats are due, surely, also to the grandfather, the broadcaster and sports writer Tom McGurk. As Tom is a patriotic Co Tyrone man, he’ll have had lots to celebrate recently!

Makings of a saint

There were many moving commemorations and tributes paid last week, on September 11, honouring the victims of the terrorist attacks on Manhattan’s Twin Towers 20 years ago.

Special heroism

Tim Stanley, British historian and journalist, speaking on the BBC chose to single out, for special heroism, Fr Mychal Judge, the Franciscan priest and chaplain to the New York Fire Department. Fr Mychal – whose parents were from Co. Leitrim, and christened him Robert Emmet – immediately rushed to the North Tower to tend to the wounded and dying. He was fatally wounded himself, and is formally named ‘Victim 0001’ – the first victim.

His devoted firefighters brought his body to the nearby Catholic church, St Peter’s, and placed it before the altar.

Fr Mychal had tended to the homeless, the marginalised, people living with AIDS, and was himself a recovered alcoholic. A biographer has written that Fr Mychal was homosexual by orientation, and felt the Church should be more accepting of gay people.

Chronicle

Tim Stanley, who has just written a book which will chronicle his own journey from youthful Marxism to Catholic convert (Whatever Happened to Tradition, published next month) considers Fr Mychal to be not just a hero, but a saint, having laid down his life for others, and inspired the brave firefighters in their courageous duty.

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Everyone seems to be swooning over Sally Rooney’s new novel Beautiful World, Where Are You?. But there’s one dissenting voice: Oxford Professor R.F. Foster, author of the definitive Yeats biography – and of the beguiling story of the Ryan family from Wexford and their 1916 generation, Vivid Faces.

Roy Foster finds the characters in Ms Rooney’s novel lacking in substance: he concludes that the 337 pages are “a hard slog” and the “irony…comes with a heavy hand”.

I’d suggest there’s a generation gap around Sally Rooney’s writing. She seems to reach out to younger people, and is even seen as representing the millennial Irish generation.

Older readers, I think, find it harder to identify with the world she depicts, or her characters. Some consider her sex scenes (which she says she nearly omitted, but was encouraged to retain by the publishers) too explicit.

More mature readers may prefer Bernard MacLaverty’s superb new collection Blank Pages and Other Stories: insightful and poignant stories touching on the senior years.