Abortion debate - Resolution still a very long way off

The shot across the bows from Catholic Primate of All-Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady, asserting that the Government is not obliged to legislate for any form of abortion because of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights on the so-called ABC case, was as predictable as it is divisive.

It sets up — one more time — a direct confrontation between Catholicism and an elected government which, through Health Minister James Reilly, has promised that this administration, unlike its six predecessors, will not avoid dealing with the volatile issue. Dr Reilly will face opposition from within his own party but will take comfort in the unambiguous support offered yesterday afternoon by cabinet colleague Pat Rabbitte who, on RTÉ, expressed regret that Cardinal Brady was involving himself and his church in politics.

Mr Rabbitte was not the only Labour politician to challenge the cardinal. Clare TD Michael McNamara, making the unavoidable link, said the cardinal lacked the “moral or legal authority” to comment as he did because of his own role and his Church’s role in protecting paedophile clerics. It seems unavoidable that those who wish to see the matter dealt with will not resist the temptation to use Catholicism’s appalling record on child sexual abuse as a way to try to silence opposition to the need for clarification provoked by the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.

These assertions, though entirely accurate and understandable, have nothing to do with the issue at hand, they will make an already impassioned debate something even more destructive and socially corrosive. The accusations are, tragically, undeniable but they are not germane.

Equally, those who support the cardinal’s assertion, made at the opening of the Edmund Rice Summer School in Waterford last week, that “they [Catholic values] cannot be relegated to the realm of private religious beliefs with no place in our laws or public policy in the name of secularism or tolerance” seem not to have accepted that this is no longer a Catholic country for a Catholic people but rather an evolving republic where everyone, whose beliefs harm nobody else and recognise that others hold different beliefs, can expect protection and the embrace of and inclusive society. The subjugation of tolerance and secularism to Catholic dogma has echoes of another more autocratic time and opens a far wider debate as does his reassertion, again on RTÉ, of his church’s trenchant opposition to same-sex marriage, described by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore as the human rights issue of our time.

The expert group established by the Government to consider the issues is expected to report next month. That report is expected to bring issues to a head though it might be unwise to expect an early much less a universally welcomed resolution. Neither is it unimaginable that Dr Reilly’s promise might be over-ruled or that a Government obliged to impose a raft of new taxes might want to avoid the opprobrium any decision on abortion will provoke.

Equally it is difficult to see how Cardinal Brady’s call for a referendum might have any bearing on the decision reached by the European Court of Human Rights. We may, as so often before, invoke an Irish solution to an Irish problem — assert one set of beliefs but live our lives by another.