Mother knows best for baby’s future
Ryle Dwyer
Ryle Dwyer
OVER the weekend there was a report that a pregnant woman had been refused chemotherapy for cancer at a Dublin hospital because she is pregnant and it would probably kill the foetus in her womb. Any woman placed in the dreadful position of having to decide between her own life and that of her unborn child has a terrible decision to make.
In the last analysis it should be her decision and no one else should have the right to interfere. During the Pro Life amendment campaign the proponents of the constitutional amendment argued that a woman’s life would never be endangered in such circumstances.
Barbara Barton from Eugene, Oregon, had been trying to have children for years when she got word in December 1993 that she was pregnant with twins, but with the news came a horrifying diagnosis that her white cell blood count was 20 times normal.
She had leukaemia.
Barbara had a real chance of beating the disease if she agreed to undergo a prompt bone marrow transplant, together with a course of chemotherapy, which would inevitably lead to the abortion of the twins. In the circumstances she decided to forego the treatment so that the babies would survive. A boy and a girl were born on July 13, 1994. By then Barbara was beyond effective medical help. She died six months later on January 22, 1995.
She might have survived if she had agreed to medical treatment, but she would probably have lost the two children. Her decision was courageous and Christian. It stands out all the more because she could so easily have had an abortion in the United States. It was the kind of decision that only she should have the right to make, not some fundamentalist doctor or nurse. She certainly should not have to put up with dictation from those constipated cranks who seem to think that they have a right to run everybody’s life.
Many of those who campaigned against the Pro Life Amendment in 1983 confidently expected that it was only a matter of time before the Supreme Court would rule in favour of a mother in need of life saving treatment. Garret FitzGerald had publicly backed the wording for a referendum on the abortion issue just before the general election was called in November 1982. Basically he acted out of a lack of faith in the sensibilities of the Irish people. He sought to demonstrate his own anti abortion credentials by promising to introduce a constitutional amendment because he was afraid that he would otherwise be tarred with being in favour of abortion.
“For my part I was seriously at fault in accepting without adequate consideration of legal advice...the proposed wording when it was put forward by Fianna Fáil,” FitzGerald admitted later. “With an election looming within 48 hours I did not seriously consider rejecting the text.”
When Peter Sutherland became Attorney General shortly afterwards, he warned FitzGerald that the wording of the proposed amendment was dangerously flawed. He argued that the Supreme Court might actually rule that the wording would “permit abortion”.
FitzGerald consulted Bishop Cassidy of Clonfert on the best way to ensure the changes needed would not be misunderstood by the hierarchy. The Taoiseach was anxious to explain the situation personally to church leaders, but the hierarchy refused to meet with him or his Government.
“I was astonished and deeply disturbed at this reaction,” FitzGerald wrote. “It was unprecedented for any group or organisation to refuse contact with the elected Government of the state.”
The hierarchy insisted on the wording that FitzGerald had initially accepted. Faced with the backbench revolt of eight Fine Gael and four Labour deputies, he was compelled to surrender and go through with his promise to hold the referendum, but he asked the electorate to reject what he believed was a flawed amendment.
“A yes vote on Wednesday will block any attempt to legalise abortion in this country,” the late Archbishop Dermot Ryan of Dublin declared. He got it badly wrong.
But he was not shown up by a cancer case. Rather it was the case of the 14 year old girl who became pregnant as a result of statutory rape by a friend’s father. When her parents tried to take her to England for an abortion, she was prevented from leaving the country by the High Court, but this was overruled by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the girl had the same right to life as her foetus and, as the mother to be was in a suicidal psychological state, she was entitled to abort the baby. A public opinion poll taken at the time, found that some 65% of the public agreed with the decision. By October 1993 some 71% of the electorate favoured legislation to permit abortion where there was a ‘physical risk’ to the mother.
The so called X case had been brought by the Attorney General Harry Whelehan, and there was little doubt that it later figured significantly in Dick Spring’s opposition to Whelehan’s appointment as President of the High Court. That, in turn, cost Albert Reynolds a promising political career. It was ironic because Albert was the one Taoiseach in the history of the state who was prepared to confront the hierarchy’s fundamentalism.
In April 1992 he erupted when the Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a statement questioning the Government’s acceptance of the Supreme Court’s decision in the X case. The bishops were demanding legislation for a new referendum on the abortion issue.
“Who the hell do they think they are?” Reynolds asked. As Taoiseach he was not going to put up with such interference. He phoned a number of bishops and “berated them for what he described as totally uninformed, not to say, grossly irresponsible language on such an explosive issue,” according to Seán Duignan.
“I’m just not going to stand for it,” the Taoiseach told them, as Duignan listened with amusement. “You met your Catholic match here, boys!” Diggy thought to himself.
The irrational attitude adopted by the Vatican in relation to abortion is having the most profound impact. The Pope recently directed the German church to shut a counselling service it set up to persuade woman not to have abortions.
The Church in Germany initially balked before reluctantly complying, but this has apparently had repercussions this week. Observers believed that the whole thing influenced Bishop Karl Lehman’s sensational suggestion that Pope John Paul II should retire because of ill health. This call — coming from the recognised leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany — has stirred a furore in the Vatican, because the Pope has told his cardinals that he believes he has a “divine mission” to carry on until he dies. This one may run, but one senses that there will be divine intervention before too long.
© The Examiner, 2000