It’s awful that a tragedy must vie with a pageant for an audience
One young woman, who lives here now, and may one day become an Irish citizen, has probably not yet heard of the Rose of Tralee. When she does, it’s timing, coinciding with the controversy over her failure to get the abortion she sought after being raped in her home country, will be a sad annual reminder of her personal tragedy. What we heard this week is that she first sought an abortion at 8 weeks, and grew increasingly desperate and suicidal, but appears to have been strung along until she reached 25 weeks and her baby was delivered by caeasarean section.
Could there be any more of a contrast with these lovely, fresh faced, confident, smiling young women in the Dome in Tralee, and the image we have of the young woman, raped as a war crime, and finding herself pregnant in a country where she does not speak the language and where her pleas to terminate the pregnancy were met with consistent obstacles.
Not for her the sparkly silver jewellery, the evening dress, the suggestive banter about the state of the relationship with her escort. No this was a “Rose” who lived in direct provision, on e19 a week; her level of impoverishment was such that she may as well have been asked to fund a world cruise as come up with the e1,500 she was told she would need to travel to the UK for an abortion.
I do realise that having a go at the Rose of Tralee is a bit like kicking the national household pet. But, as I sat in for Vincent Brown on TV3 this week, and we debated the abortion issue on the two nights that the Rose of Tralee was on RTE 1, it did seem like two parallel universes.
As it happened we had two all female panels on both nights. That’s not to suggest men do not have a place in the debate on female reproductive rights, but the dominance of oestrogen seemed wholly appropriate given the dominance of men on this subject over decades in Ireland.
When the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Act was finally passed over a year ago I believed at the time it was a poor piece of legislation, and one that would run into trouble (I didn’t imagine it would happen so soon, and so tragically). But after decades of political cowardice it seemed like some movement was better than none. Now that the principle had been established, that the politicians were doing what they were elected to do, making decisions and making law, there was the prospect of further progress being made in time.
But I was naïve – bad law is bad law, and this one more than fits that description in its inadequacy. We have to await the outcome of the HSE internal inquiry into this case, due at the end of September, but it is clear already that there is an absolute lack of clarity in terms of how this new system operates, who should be informed, or what should happen to a woman who is involved in the asylum seeking process and who has no access to funds in order for her to travel for an abortion, or a visa to enter the UK and re-enter Ireland afterwards.
The chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association Niall Behan made clear during the week that it wishes to offer women in this situation as much help as possible, but they are left with the problem of no clear pathway in terms of how they should operate. They are also all too aware that if they were to put a foot wrong (even though no one is really sure where anyones feet should be) they would face serious consequences.
We simply cannot continue with a situation where Ireland is an outlier compared to other European countries which have faced up to abortion with approved time limits. I found it quite breath taking this week to hear some politicians say that we did need a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment to the Constitution in relation to abortion, but that it would be the job of the next Government to do that.
These were Labour politicians, including Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan and junior Equality Minister Aodhain O Riordain. The point was also made that Labour is in a coalition government with Fine Gael and that the bigger party has absolutely no appetite whatsoever to return to this subject which caused it so much trouble last year.
That response is human. Who amongst us wants to walk into trouble, especially if you are a politician who has just faced a drubbing at the local and European elections, and want to get back on track for the upcoming general election.
But that is to ignore the reason why we elect politicians, or indeed why they put themselves forward for election. They are in the Dail to make laws that are sensible, strong and properly serve Irish people.
It is political cowardice to turn around now and say that the commitment in the Programme for Government to legislation for the X case has been dealt with, and that the matter rests there.
As we saw from the debates that took place in the run up to the abortion vote in the Dail last year, and the opinion polls which were published then, the majority of Irish people are in what was termed as the “middle ground” on this issue.
They believe that when it comes to the issue of rape, fatal foetal abnormality and suicide that a woman should have access to an abortion. I am certain that having heard the details of this poor young woman, who was repeatedly delayed in her request to have an abortion, forced to have a caesarean at 25 weeks, who refused food and water, and whose seriously premature baby is now in a maternity hospital incubator, most Irish people are utterly appalled.
I very much doubt Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan assertion that there is no appetite for a further referendum to remove the 8th amendment, but it suits him to say that. In our political world though it seems as if the parallel Rose of Tralee universe prevails. It involves the “lovely girls” with the “truth in their eyes”, dancing a jig, receiving on-stage marriage proposals and smiling at Mammy and Daddy, who emigrated 40 years ago, in the audience. This is the preferred version of Irish womanhood.
It’s couldn’t be further away from the troubled world of being inseminated through rape, keeping a baby in your womb that will not survive outside it at full term, or feeling suicidal because of not wanting to have a baby, or indeed simply being trusted as a gender to be in charge of your own reproductive destiny.
I’ll be delighted to sit down and watch the Rose of Tralee the year I hear one of the Roses saying that as well as world peace she’d like Irish politicians to live up to their responsibilities and do the right thing by Irish women.
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