Politicians lagging behind rest of us on abortion issue

WHAT was striking about the marches in Ireland last weekend following the death of Savita Halappanavar was how so many of those attending had never been on a political march of any sort before.

(Many on social media cheerfully admitted this.) And so, presumably, they were also only fuzzily aware of how we have been in this shameful situation so many times before.

Not just the X case, but before that, the death of Anne Lovett: a 15-year-old left to die in a field by an Ireland that not only rejected abortion, but was so emotionally retarded that the idea of enjoying sex was viewed as disgusting. It would be trite to say that this is the 1980s all over again — and untrue. Thankfully, the sex-is-evil ethos which damaged us for generations has finally been scrubbed away. Now there are people in their mid-30s with no memory of those oppressive ideas — and no understanding of how older generations could have succumbed to them. They may well have heard the stories: about nuns advising girls to use a newspaper if they sat on a man’s lap or about priests making sure dancing couples stood six inches apart. For decades, the Catholic Church in this country had a frenzied obsession with sex. “Immoral” meant “sexual” and from that, all the other attitudes towards, divorce, contraception and abortion sprang. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been so tragic. We all know how that ended for the Church. If it has any moral authority left, it has shrunk to near nothing. It would be hard to imagine it exhorting much influence on this issue, while even the so-called “pro-life” groups don’t seem to have the clout they once had. Yet still so many of our politicians have remained silent on the issue. By instinct, they have returned to their default hand-washing position, just as the previous six administrations did. At best, we get guff about “not rushing” and “being calm” — they still fear the belt of the crozier even when that threat no longer exists.

And in this, it seems, our elected representatives are many leagues behind the people. The Holy Catholic Ireland of John Charles McQuaid is dead and gone, and good riddance to it. Yet this news has yet to reach Dáil Eireann.

That’s not to say that many Irish people don’t have, at best, ambivalent views on abortion. They do. They worry about “abortion on demand”; whatever that means. But there finally seems to be a recognition in this country that life is not full of easy, black-and-white decisions. At least on this issue, we may have finally started to grow up.

There have been reports that even in a free vote, legislation on the X Case would pass. And a free vote would be the most moral, responsible approach to take. Make the entire Dáil responsible for what happens next. But if they fail, see how many people march then.