Readers blog: The greatest argument against abortion on grounds of “fatal foetal abnormality”

The greatest argument against abortion for what is wrongly termed “Fatal Foetal abnormality” is given in the book “Under the Eye of the Clock” by Christopher Nolan.

Nolan, native of Clontarf, Dublin, was severely disabled at birth with cerebral palsy. Yet through the care of his parents, especially his mother who used a typing stick attached to his head, he learned to type.

At the age of 15 years he won international fame and awards for his book of poems “Dam burst of Dreams”.

In his autobiography “Under the Eye of the Clock” 1987 he wrote against abortion of disabled children, the following: “The future for babies like him never looked more promising, but now society frowned upon giving spastic babies a right to life.

"Now they threaened to abort babies like him, to detect in advance their handicapped state, to burrow through the womb and label them for death, to baffle their mothers fear for their coming ... why then does society fear the crippled child and why does it hail the able-bodied child over what may in time become a potential executioner?”.

Fr Con McGillicuddy, Raheny, Dublin 5