David Quinn
Sally Phillips with her son Olly Various experts have been appearing before the Oireachtas Committee that is considering what wording to put before the Irish people in next year’s abortion referendum. Much of the focus on the hearings to date has been on their alleged bias. More on this anon, what is far more important is what was said last week to the committee by the Masters of the two biggest maternity hospitals in the country.
These doctors are respectively Rhona Mahony of the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street, and Fergal Malone of the Rotunda. Between them, these hospitals perform almost 20,000 births per year. To cut a long story short, both of these doctors support repeal of the Eighth Amendment and a right to an abortion where the baby suffers from a disability, or ‘fetal abnormality’. This includes Down Syndrome.
The testimony of both of these doctors should have received far more coverage than it did, and it should have focused on their recommendations that women who do not want to carry a badly disabled baby to term should be able to have these babies aborted in Irish hospitals.
Restriction
In the case of Dr Malone, he supports the right of a woman to abort a baby with a ‘fetal abnormality’ without any restriction as to the stage of pregnancy, and without any restriction as to the type of disability “eligible” for abortion. (Notably, he never uses the term ‘abortion’ preferring instead the term ‘termination’).
In his paper, he makes mention of severe fetal abnormalities like Down Syndrome, but makes no mention of the sheer number of Down Syndrome babies that are aborted in countries like Britain, the US, Denmark, the Netherlands, never mind Iceland where, according to the BBC documentary, A World Without Down Syndrome?, no Down Syndrome baby has been born in five years.
Dr Malone says in his paper that he does not want to advocate for either a pro-life or a pro-choice position, but in effect he advocates for a pro-choice position because he talks throughout about the need for doctors to respect whatever choice the mother makes as to the fate of her child. The right to life of the unborn child is not considered.
Dr Malone speaks about foetuses with a fatal abnormality and those with a non-fatal one. He supports a right to an abortion in both cases.
He wants Ireland to decriminalise abortion “in the setting of fetal abnormalities”. He believes “obstetricians and maternity hospitals in Ireland should be able to provide legal termination of pregnancy in the setting of fatal or complex fetal abnormalities”.
He does not believe the law should say which “specific fetal abnormalities would be considered ‘eligible’ for pregnancy termination”. This would mean that the law could not forbid the aborting of Down Syndrome babies, for instance.
Finally, he does not believe the law should forbid doctors from aborting babies with a fetal abnormality at any stage in the pregnancy.
Dr Rhona Mahony’s paper is not as clear as Dr Malone’s but what they seek in respect of our law is very similar. Like Dr Malone, she speaks of women who have gone to England to have a baby aborted because the baby had a “fetal anomaly”. She regrets that these women have to travel to England.
She mentions in a supportive way the highly controversial call by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Britain to completely decriminalise abortion. This would effectively pave the way for abortion under any circumstances. This is what abortion providers in the UK want. Even though the law in Britain oversees almost 200,000 abortions there annually, it is not considered liberal enough by some.
Like Dr Malone, Dr Mahony does not give any real attention to the right to life of the unborn child. The focus is on the mother and the choices she wants to make.
The testimony of these very senior doctors has received almost no attention and has not sparked any debate. As a society, we should find it very concerning, or at a minimum as something worthy of major note, that two such senior medics would give testimony to an Oireachtas Committee that seeks to pave the way for a right to abort babies with ‘fetal abnormalities’ like Down Syndrome.
If we go down the path they recommend, it would be a break of the most important kind with past medical tradition in this country, a noble tradition, practised by generations of doctors, which seeks to preserve and protect the lives of all patients, born and unborn. Among other things this change would mean that over time Ireland, like Britain, would almost certainly become a society in which very few children with Down Syndrome are born. In what way is this not eugenics?
We really ought to debate this. Both doctors should come forward and be asked on radio and television whether they are really comfortable about such a scenario? Interviewers must be prepared to ask them hard questions instead of the kid glove treatment both doctors customarily receive from interviewers.
Mattie McGrath TD and Senator Ronan Mullen did try asking the doctors some tough questions but were stymied by committee procedures which apparently are more important than thorough cross-examination of expert witnesses.
Both McGrath and Mullen have threatened to resign from the committee out of frustration at how it is conducting its business. For example, out of the experts who have either appeared before it so far, or who are due to do so, pro-choice speakers outnumber pro-life speakers by an astonishing six-to-one. If this is not bias, then what is?
The participation of pro-life speakers and committee members in this process simply gives it a dignity it does not deserve. It is better now to highlight the enormous threat being posed to the right of life of the unborn, especially those with disabilities, from outside the committee, not within it. If we fail to do this, then Ireland will become a much more dangerous place for such children, which is a very unpalatable thought indeed.