Members of the Life Institute at an awareness event at the Dáil this week marked the third anniversary of the repeal of the constitutional right to life of preborn babies, and remembered the 6,666 unborn children whose lives were ended by abortion. The View
Niamh Uí Bhriain
Just three months into the supposedly progressive and compassionate abortion regime established by Simon Harris after the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, the unthinkable happened.
A preborn baby boy was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 in the National Maternity Hospital. His parents said that they were not afraid to care for a sick child, but they were told the condition was ‘fatal’ and not to wait for the results of a second test. They say they never brought up the word abortion, but it seems they believe they were made to feel that was the best option. The little boy was aborted. Then the result of the second test came back. The first test was wrong. The baby didn’t have Trisomy 18. He was perfectly healthy, but by then it was too late.
It was too late because abortion is irreversible. Once a life is ended there is no going back. And the truth is that we don’t know how many other cases like this have arisen under the abortion legislation. But we do know that should be investigated – as should many of the other shocking and horrific outcomes of the law.
Review
This year, the Department of Health is obliged to undertake a review of the legislation. That review must not be a missed opportunity.
The incoming Secretary General of the Department of Health, Robert Watt, recently told the Oireachtas Health Committee that the review will take a three-part approach – and will include a public consultation. In effect this means that you will have a chance to have your say on the abortion regime.
But at this point, unless the review is simply a rubber-stamp for the abortion regime and a platform for abortion campaigners to further expand this already radical law, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly should take care that the correct terms of reference are set for the review.
That means examining the devastating failures for the legislation – including those outcomes that we were repeatedly assured would never happen, such as the tragic abortion misdiagnosis case in Holles Street.
It means looking at the startling rise in the number of abortions for Irish women. Some 6,666 abortions took place in Ireland in 2019, the first year of the abortion regime – more than double the number of abortions which had been carried out on 2,879 women who travelled to Britain for the procedure in 2018. An unknown number of women, estimated by some at 1,000 or more, also took abortion pills in that year.
The appalling rise in the abortion rate in 2019 reversed almost a decade of decline in the number of abortions undergone by women living in Ireland. This massive upwards shift was predicted by pro-life activists during the 2018 referendum and strongly denied by abortion campaigners including members of government. We can see who was telling the truth now. So much for Leo Varadkar’s promise of abortion being ‘rare’.
The review must include an analysis of why the abortion rate increased so rapidly to 6,666 abortions in 2019, and what can be done to reduce the number of abortions now taking place in Ireland.
The fact that late-term abortions are being carried out in Ireland, despite denials that this would ever happen, must also be reviewed.
The recent, shocking revelations from a University College Cork study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has confirmed that late-term abortions are taking place and that the method being used is foeticide – where the baby is given a lethal injection of potassium chloride into the heart.
Potassium chloride is controversially used to execute prisoners on death row in the US. As researcher Ruth Foley previously observed, in the US, it is considered so painful that the authorities in charge of executions believe it necessary to first give anaesthetic to avoid being inhumane to the prisoner being put to death. A recent article in The Washington Post confirmed that an injection of potassium chloride can cause such pain and suffering in adults being executed that both an anesthetic and a paralytic are administered prior to the lethal substance. The author, an associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, cautions that even these measures may only mask rather than prevent the “burning pain” of the administration of the poison.
Pain relief
There is no obligation to give babies undergoing late-term abortions in Ireland pain relief. Minister Donnelly must ensure a review of this extraordinary cruelty is included in the terms of reference. The review must also examine why BJOG study also found that doctors in Ireland were left “begging for help” if babies survived late-term abortions.
They might also consider why another study – also carried out by abortion-advocating medics – and published in April 2021, says senior Irish doctors were being trained internationally to carry out late-term dismemberment abortions, known as ‘dilation and evacuation’. We were also assured that would never happen. Any review worth its salt must look at what was promised to the public and why those promises appear to have been broken.
The disturbing abortion misdiagnosis case discussed above must also be examined. Two full years after their baby was aborted, the parents say they are facing obstacle after obstacle in relation to a full inquiry – from the same politicians who told us abortion was being introduced to help families. During the referendum, when parents in ‘Every Life Counts’ repeatedly warned that parents would face this kind of pressure, and that babies with suspected serious disabilities would be targeted, they were shouted down or ignored. They have tragically been proved right.
An investigation into the case should also seek to establish a protocol to ensure parents are not pressured into having an abortion – and are given factual, peer-reviewed information and offered support to continue with their baby.
Reporting
The review should also examine the exceptionally poor reporting and record-keeping around the provision of abortion in this country given that it was revealed recently, for example, that no national reporting system is in place in relation to adverse outcomes to using the abortion pill. It should listen to the voices of women who, in the three-day waiting period, changed their mind and continued with their pregnancies.
And it must also hear from pro-life doctors and nurses, in regard to their experiences with the abortion regime and especially in regard to conscientious objection.
But unless the terms of reference now being set for the review allow for a full examination of the outcomes of the abortion law thus far, the process won’t be worthwhile. In that regard, it is vital that pro-life people speak up to seek fairness in the process. Tell your TD today that the terms of reference for the review must be inclusive and seek to examine all the facts including the negative outcomes.
A review which is simply a whitewash is unacceptable.