Right to freedom of expression somehow did not extend to anti-abortion campaigners

THE blasphemy bill proposed by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has given rise to considerable comment in your news and letter columns with most, if not all, writers expressing concern over the effects of such a measure on the rights to freedom of expression in Ireland.

While not taking issue with such concerns, they appear to be in sharp contrast with what must have been a conspiracy of silence when people were being arrested in Ireland just a few years ago for exercising such freedoms.

I refer specifically to the arrest of members of Youth Defence – of which I have never been a member, though I am in agreement with its principal aim – for displaying images of aborted foetuses on the grounds that such images may have been offensive, even to those who approved of the practices responsible for them.

In a more up-to-date context, this would seem to be roughly on a par with arresting those who would display images of ill-treated prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, or anywhere else, on the basis that the publication of such images might be offensive to some, including those who approve of such treatment or even those directly responsible for it.

I have no doubt there would be widespread concern and comment should such arrests occur, so why the silence here just a few years ago from the media and those who would claim to be defenders of free speech.

If photographic evidence had been used to show the ill-treatment of persons in residential care or perhaps the abuse of animals, we would normally expect those responsible for such abuse to face the full rigours of the law and not those who exposed them.

In the case of abortion it was those who exposed the horrors of the procedures who were treated like common criminals, while many who would have seen themselves as defenders of free speech were silent or turned a blind eye to such treatment.

Rory O’Donovan

Sundays Well Road

Cork