Child’s right and mother’s right to choose

THE proposal to enshrine the rights of the child in the constitution will require considerable debate.

Already, there are concerns about how such an amendment might impact on the existing rights of parents and the family. Add to that the gay adoption debate and how this may impact on the amendment.

How will such rights intersect with the “woman’s right to choose”, which is routinely invoked to broadly cover four options: a) To have sex, or not; b) To use contraception, or not; c) To have her baby fathered by a long-term partner, or not; d) To have an abortion, or not.

More than 20,000 babies are born each year in Ireland to unmarried parents and 25% of these have no father’s name on the birth certificate. In addition, more than 5,000 women travel abroad each year for abortions.

How will the constitutional rights of the child be represented when a woman exercises her “right to choose” in the last two options?

Will some groups argue that some babies born to unmarried mothers, and all those babies aborted, would have better life prospects if adopted by a gay couple in a stable relationship?

Peter Molloy

9 Haddington Park

Glenageary

Co Dublin.