The termination of reason and of logic

THE two earliest casualties of abortion debates are reason and logic.

This has proved to be the case again, in recent days, as the temperature goes up in advance of legislation.

Otherwise sane and rational people lurch into another gear. Those who were never sane in the first instance muster a new pep in their step, now that they have been joined, in their lonely outpost, by legions who otherwise would sail on by.

Listening, viewing, and reading (‘consuming’ is the term de jour) the media coverage, over the last week or so, was to wonder what becomes of the country at times like these.

Take the lack of reason. One noticeable feature of the debate is that everybody believes that they are an expert in every facet of the issue.

It’s like football. Any bar-stool fan who has a passionate interest in his or her team believes they could do a better job than the manager. This belief is rooted in a fevered passion that, in many ways, bears similarities to faith in a religion.

In the real world, the fan couldn’t manage his way out of a wet paper bag, but you couldn’t tell him that, because he is blind to all reason as a result of his fandom.

Last week, three prominent members of the so-called pro-life movement offered their opinions on areas for which they are neither trained nor experienced, yet they are convinced that they know best.

On Marian Finucane’s radio show last Sunday, Breda O’Brien lectured obstetrician, Peter Boylan, on obstetrics. Boylan is one of the best-known obstetricians in the country, having served as a master of the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin’s Holles Street. O’Brien is a teacher and newspaper columnist.

On Tonight with Vincent Browne, on Monday, Caroline Simons told psychiatrist Peader O’Grady he was wrong on psychiatry. Simons has a qualification in law, and has never trained, nor practised, as a psychiatrist.

On RTÉ radio’s Late Debate, on Tuesday, Dr Sean O’Domhnaill explained that the Supreme Court’s judgement on the X case was “inextricably flawed”. He was implying that he knew more about the law than judges of the highest court in the land. O’Domhnaill has never served as a judge, and does not practice as a lawyer.

People with dearly held and genuine beliefs — usually, although not exclusively, rooted in religion — think that they know more about science, medicine, and the law than practitioners who have extensive training and experience. Are we living through the Old Testament? Should we expect some of the so-called pro-life lobby to break out in tongues of fire?

Then, there’s James Reilly, the Minister for Health. Some people suggest that on the basis of his ministerial performance, ‘reason’ and ‘Reilly’ should never be uttered in the same sentence, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

On Sunday last, the Sunday Times reported that the proposed draft law to be brought to Cabinet by Reilly would include provision for a suicidal pregnant woman’s case to be examined by six doctors, including both obstetricians and psychiatrists.

On Monday, Reilly rubbished the story. Or, at least, he dressed the story up as a straw man and blew that down. He said there was never any question of a woman having to go before a panel of six doctors, which was not what had been reported.

On Tuesday, it emerged that the proposal was for six doctors to assess a suicidal woman, in two panels of three.

Are sums a weak point with Reilly? Does he know that three and three equals six?

Further stuff-and-nonsense emerged at Fine Gael’s weekly parliamentary party meeting. The gathering was reported to be the most heated since the party ascended to government more than two years ago. A number of members spoke out against any provision in the law for a woman who professes to be suicidal to have a right to an abortion, as per the ruling in the X case.

The most prominent voice was Lucinda Creighton’s, the junior minister for European Affairs. She told the gathering that she had given a personal commitment to voters at the last election that there would be no provision for suicide in any legislation. So, too, had the national party — she was reported as saying. And what were they at now?

Creighton is entitled to her beliefs, and she shouldn’t be forced, on pain of losing her portfolio, to vote against her conscience. But dragging her constituents into her beliefs is taking the proverbial. At the last election, Fine Gael, and all its candidates, promised the sun, moon and stars to voters, and since gaining office they have broken a raft of promises. And she is presenting her commitment as a matter of honour?

In any event, her constituency is Dublin South East, one of the most liberal in the State. In a 1992 referendum, 73.75% of voters in that constituency rejected the removal of suicide as a grounds for abortion. In 2002, 63.73% of the constituency did likewise. Whom exactly is Creighton representing with her views?

Then there is the logic. The main objection to including a suicide provision in the legislation is that it could “open the floodgates” to abortion for the masses. The historic example cited in this regard is California, where, after abortion was introduced on mental health grounds in 1967, the rate of terminations mushroomed. 1967 was the ‘summer of love’ in California. Everybody wore flowers in their hair and had sex with everybody else. There was a drive for a liberal regime of abortion to be introduced. Where exactly is the comparison between there and then, and the here and now, in a country where the vast middle ground only want abortion to be introduced in limited circumstances?

Apart from that, who will rush through these mythical floodgates? Would the 6,000 or so women who take a cheap flight to Britain stay at home, instead, and submit themselves to having their sanity probed by a panel of doctors? Far more likely that the issue will continue to be exported, hidden away across the Irish Sea, where we don’t have to think too much about it.

Equally, the anti-abortion crowd are at pains to say they don’t believe psychiatrists are knaves or fools.

Nobody is suggesting that the psychiatric profession would either conspire to break the law, or that a vulnerable young woman could pull the wool over the eyes of a head doctor.

Are the naysayers suggesting that (mostly) young women in crisis pregnancies are both cynical and devious enough to try it on, and get away with, faking suicidal ideation? Perhaps such a notion fits in with the Catholic Church’s historical fear of women’s sexuality, but it bears little resemblance to the realities of today’s world.

So who would unlock these gates? Would some supernatural force descend to pollute the minds of pregnant women and soften the minds of psychiatrists? Where is the reason? Where is the logic?