Senator Jim Walsh telling it like it is

The culture of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ persists in Ireland.

We deny the reality of wrongdoing, and its cover-up, when it is embedded in the social and institutional orthodoxy. The ‘politically correct’ commentariat, among them prominent journalists and politicians, said Senator Jim Walsh’s descriptions of abortion were “disgusting”, “over-the-top” and “inappropriate”. Their outcry is an example of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’.

Nobody called the veracity of Senator Walsh’s statement into question.

When voting on a critical issue of life-and-death legislation, which will permit abortion of healthy babies of physically healthy mothers, without a time limit on certification by two pro-choice psychiatrists, it is essential that legislators know, in all its gory detail, just what it is they are approving.

This is what informed, responsible decision-making demands.

Instead, we hide behind euphemisms and the language of denial, just as we did in the past. If there had been legislators like Senator Walsh in Nazi Germany, who ditched the euphemisms and described graphically the ‘solution’ to the Jewish problem, history might have taken a different course.

Margaret Hickey

Castleowen

Blarney

Co Cork