US ‘sinister elements’ funding Irish counterparts

Surely, it is nothing short of blatant interference in our secular republic that the most sinister elements in US society are engaged in big time money raising to boost the agenda of their counterparts in this part of the world.

Such a financial lifeline between the warmongering extreme right in the US and the Spuc brigade is nothing new, but recent pressures at home and from abroad for reform in our abortion laws have put their efforts up a gear or two.

In fact, this transatlantic relationship goes back a long way and they both see this island as their last fort standing in the western world. Back in the middle eighties at the time of the campaign for the re-election of the uncrowned King of “Pro Life” Ronald Reagan, letters of support from Spuc appeared in the Irish papers: they lavished praise on both his domestic and foreign policies.

The scale of human life aborted by bomb and bullet at the hands of the Reagan-backed death squads in El Salvador was explained away as wars against communism. The blind fundamentalism of these people could earn them the title “Western Taliban”.

Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to give legislative effect to the Supreme Court decision on the X case, leaving the initiative to Spuc who were the catalysts behind two challenges to the X case decision. Women’s lives were not a priority.

But women’s lives did become a red-line issue thanks to the demands of the European Court of Human Rights. The upcoming reform to the abortion law should mean changes which are as clear as the will of the people manifested in the recent MRB poll. This will give Spuc the opportunity to apply their absolutist beliefs to their own circumstances without having to enforce them by law on the rest of society.

Eric McCarthy

Togher

Cork