Readers blog: Birth choices are never black and white
When a baby is born before 24 weeks and/or weighs less than 500 grams the situation is very complex.
Aggressive intervention can be made to try and save the baby; or parents with their doctors can decide to let the survival of the baby take a natural path with minimal intervention and palliative care.
This choice would be akin to the compassionate decision many of us make towards the end of life of a loved one: an instruction to doctors and carers not to resuscitate and not to treat with antibiotics.
And the choice in these cases of premature birth is never a simple either-or.
Some cases will lean one way and others will take a different direction. Real-time medical decisions are based on all the information available - information subject to the imperfections of science and technology, the limitations of the hospital, and the fact that we are all flawed human beings driven by our own mix of logic, wisdom and emotion.
Is this morally acceptable?
Should we instruct doctors to prolong life no matter when a baby is born, no matter what the cost to quality of life, and that they must use all the interventional tools at their disposal?
Should parents have the right to let their baby’s life end naturally, at a day old?
I am pro-choice up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and anti-choice after 12 weeks’ gestation — except in the rare case of fatal foetal abnormality.
With these cases, early delivery and palliative care is a choice parents should be allowed to make.
If medical science advances to being able to deliver babies (without consequence to their quality of life) from 12 weeks’ gestation, then I would have to think again.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adam’s has said: “he would address his role in Troubles, if the mechanism existed” and would “encourage other republicans” to do the same.
He indicated he would be more open and follow Martin McGuinness’s lead in reflecting on his darker side.
This is an important statement by him. Obviously we are yet to know far more about Gerry Adams than carefully edited and tailored information fed from the ministry of truth at Sinn Féin.
Victims will be waiting with bated breath as the door to Gerry Adams skeleton closet finally begins to open somewhat.
This could be a sign that senior republicans are finally going to admit responsibility for causing much of the Troubles in Northern Ireland — bar naming individuals who died or were sanctioned at their hands or orders.
Of course there is a big difference between speaking vaguely of nefarious conduct during the height of the Troubles and actually atoning for them.
No member of Sinn Féin or its paramilitary hue the IRA have owned up as individuals to any specific acts or deeds.
McGuinness admitted he was a senior commander in the IRA, but that falls well short of actually taking responsibility for deeds done.
Many victims are now saying the truth has died with McGuinness, but may suspect Gerry Adams knows a thing or two about McGuinness’s role in their loved-one’s loss. The motives for Adam’s recent slow move towards openness is not without ingenuity.
It may well benefit Adams considerably to fill the shoes of IRA man McGuinness who was very respected in republican extremist circles, who are still very active. The Sinn Féin president needs to command respect from all republicans now that McGuinness is no longer around in dealing with those who have terrorist leanings?
Martin McGuinness had more or less the same status in republicanism as the Sinn Féin president. Adams is now left alone to deal with and lead all republicans in troubled and failing devolutionary times.
With McGuinness out of the picture, Adams faces the gruelling task of keeping the republican family together in the background of failed Stormont talks and with a united Ireland growing fainter with every passing impasse.
The best thing he can do is admit responsibility for any criminal acts he may have done and leave republicanism altogether.
He owes it to his own soul which is now surely heavy with reservations and regrets about his controversial life. The problem with Sinn Féin is that they believe in themselves too much.
Sinn Féin have an ego which is much bigger than their capability. They are regularly accused of being a party of protest, rather than being a party of government.
If this is true, then what can they achieve in the long run? Sinn Féin are just too proud to give up the struggle and admit crass failure.
They are a 20th century movement in a 21st century world who have failed to recognise the passage of time.
Rural Post Offices should not be closed because their demise would accelerate the depopulation of the rural community. People are unwilling to settle in an area where the basic services which are taken for granted are absent.
The consequences where the postal services have been removed, small schools have closed, shops and other businesses have lost much custom and in many instances, have closed down.
The fact that people have to move out of their own village to collect their pensions and entitlements means their money is spent outside their own community. The consequences of this trend are evident, as I mentioned at the outset.
The removal of postal services from the area destroys the very spirit of local enterprises. Clubs and associations are decimated.
Such services should not be removed at a time when European funding programmes are encouraging rural community initiatives.
The closure of rural post offices also acts as a disincentive to outside investment.
Postmistresses and postmasters are not being paid for their work over the years. The work they do is far beyond that for which they are paid. They are the local centre and distribute the news, good and bad.
I appeal, that these people be nurtured rather than decimated, as is the practise of An Post.
In its new role and in the new European scene of competitiveness, An Post seems to forget where it comes from and where it is going. For the reasons stated — keep life in the rural community by battling ahead for the retention of rural post offices.
In view of our general national reputation for being more or less permanently plastered in very large numbers, it seems little wonder that some of our cuter gardaí have felt that in the widespread alcoholic haze, given the evident lack of supervision, an extra million or so putative Irish boozers might well go entirely unnoticed.
The only people who are benefiting by this help to buy scheme are the property developers. With the huge surge in house prices, we will be back to 2008 when the bubble burst under the Fianna Fáil government.
We are where we are today with 30 years of debt to pay back to Nama. It broke our small country then and the same will happen again.
This wasteful scheme is politically motivated. We need to open up all the properties half finished from the last fiasco in 2008. They are all around the country even today.
Michael Howard’s assertion that British Prime Minister Theresa May might go to war to protect the sovereignty of Gibraltar is a possible foretaste of what a break-down of relations between European nations will be like if the European Union ends.
It might not happen immediately but European nations might eventually start squabbling over borders and under whose jurisdiction various peoples like in Gibraltar belong.
The nation of Russia, which sees itself as a rival of the EU, has already used its strong influence to wrestle the Crimea from a weaker Ukraine.
How many other small nations will follow Russia’s example and start imagining that they also must be rivals of each other in order to gain popularity in their national elections?
How long, too, before these rival nations go on to attempt to solve their petty disputes by military means when they get out of hand?
I enjoyed reading Edward Mahon’s letter (Irish Examiner 3 April, 2017) and am pleased that we have a west of Ireland man in the ‘Park’.
However, I also enjoy driving on our motorways which are due in part to Bertie Ahern.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
