Bruton stating facts about equal right to life

Former Taoiseach John Bruton is to be congratulated on stating so clearly a fact that is rather embarrassing for Taoiseach Enda Kenny and any other TDs who support abortion legislation, namely, that the “plain words” of the Irish Constitution acknowledge an “equal right to life” of a mother and her unborn child, which right is incompatible on its face with legal access to abortion on grounds of suicidal ideation.

Any legislation that permits abortion on suicidal grounds would create an obvious inequality between the life of mother and child, since the uncertain risk that the mother may unilaterally take her own life is treated as a sufficient reason for directly inflicting certaindeath on her unborn child, rather than as a medical condition requiring normal, nondestructive, and medically established methods of treatment.

No matter what one believes about the morality of abortion, it cannot be reasonably denied that a law permitting abortion as a “therapy” (of extremely dubious medical standing) for treating suicidal ideation treats the two lives unequally, not equally.

Nothing the Supreme Court said 20 years ago, and nothing abortion advocates have said in the intervening years, proves otherwise.

Dr David Thunder, PhD (Political Science)

Research Fellow

Institute for Culture and Society

University of Navarra

Pamplona

Spain