I’m a huge supporter of TFMR. Their strength in appearing on the Late Late Show was very powerful and I hope that their cause is advanced in the future. However their issue requires constitutional change thorugh a referendum.

The committee is specifically tasked with discussing legislative change within the existing constitution. To open up the debate to constitutional change would diminish the discussion given to Savita, the X-case, suicide and the other issues surrounding the proposed legislation.

This legislation is long overdue but in the final push it needs our full attention. We can’t mess this one up. It’s not popular to say, and I know this post will get the usual thumbs down, but their issue is for another day. I wish it weren’t that way, but these things must be taken step by step.

Well said David. I’d rather it wasn’t done piecemeal, but legislation for emergency scenarios needs to be dealt with urgently. If we can get this right, then it will hopefully make debating the wider issue clearer too.

@ Jim, I could not agree more with your well expressed sentiments. Tragically, fatal foetal abnormalities do not fall within the scope of the X Case or the decision of the European Court of Human Rights.

Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, Eight Amendment, prevents addressing the concerns, legitimate and meritorious, of TFMR Ireland.

This is the sad result of enshrining Roman Catholic dogma into our Constitution.

And still some of us listen to the pontificating of the Roman Catholic Church.

Seems a bit odd to omit TFMR from having any input to the committee would have thought their experience would have been invaluable.

Regarding the ‘religious’ yes they will be presenting on the 3rd day of the committee sitting. Think they also have a meeting with government lined up as well?

According to the schedule posted on Boards, yes, they will — as will Youth Defence and the Iona Institute. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82513581&postcount=3770

C’mon, you don’t organise a week of committee sittings just for “optics”.

The cynicism on this site is mind boggling at the best of times.

Does anyone here think these hearings will be a walk in the park? You couldn’t possibly sit through these and not be faced with the realities and hear the arguments from both sides.

i dont understand how the church is allowed to be involved in legislation. boggles my mind. i dont send lawyers to do mass either…

@ Brendan Young, I was thinking about how to get around Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution and the narrow limits of the X case. That’s not a bad solution at all which you suggest. It’s resourceful.

Until Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, the Eight Amendment which enshrined Roman Catholic dogma into our Constitution, we will continue to be plagued by legal and medical issues, not to mention human misery, resulting from this misconceived Constitutional provision.

This was exactly what I was thinking. How we can logically hold – for example an anencephalic foetus’ life to be equal to the woman it resides within? This is utterly ludicrous.

It was my understanding that the ECHRs rejection of, I can’t remember which it was, D? Was because they reckoned she hadn’t tried the constitution to see if Ireland would be silly enough to try and consider a non viable foetus equal, she had just terminated in the UK. It was a technicality that it was struck down on if memory serves, so it still requires clarification.. I would have thought that TFMR would get a mention – their plight was highlighted in the preface of the expert report. I can see the argument of it not being strictly relevant to ABC or X, they are certainly more relevant to the debate than bishops and Immams (and apparently some atheists who have been permitted).

If TFMR is not addressed in a timely manner after emergency legislation it will be a total disgrace. I would prefer they did it all together and did it properly but I guess we will have to take what we get and work from there..

@ Shanti Om, only in Ireland could we have a consultative process which considers members of the Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy as having more value to contribute than TFMR.

It truly is a perverted view to consider a foetus without a brain as legally on a par with sentient, feeling, person with her memories, relationships, connections, aspirations, love, her desire for the future, her life remaining to be lived and her full human worth. We live in a strange Alice in Wonderland world when the life, health and welfare of a woman enjoy no priority over unselfaware foetus.

The life of one pregnant woman is incomparable with all the foetuses in the world.

Lisa this is not about your body. Lets be sensible here. The baby a woman carries has her own body. This is the body under attack.
As an aside can you list any women in Ireland that have died due to lack of abortion facilities?
Obviously poor Savita cannot be an example as she sadly died from post operative complications from exactly the same procedure that would have been used to perform an abortion had she had one.

Sheila Hodgers. And while it can’t be certain that Savita would have survived if she had been able to access an abortion, the risk of complications would have been greatly reduced.

@Nicky
The risk of anything is completely opaque right now in that case so your statement is incorrect.

I couldn’t agree more, Orly. The best way to propagate child abuse and inhumane treatment in general is to put religious dogma and centuries old teachings ahead of people. That’s how an instition can on the one hand condone child molestation, and on the other condemn abortion.

That’s a straw man. Claim my argument us other than it is, assume my religious, ethnic background and then tear down the easily destroyed straw man, throwing in a few ad hominem. The old 1,2!
But it avoids the issue that abortion ends a life every time.

Not a straw man, Leigh. You brought child abuse into the debate. Your staunch viewpoint echoes that of faith based organizations, and suggests you believe a foetus has an immortal soul. Are you saying I have no grounds to connect your religious-sounding comment, your mention of child abuse and the dire track record of the largest religious institution in the country with child abuse? If I presumed wrong , I apologise, but you’ve some way to go to convince me that a foetus and an 8 year-old deserve the same rights.
I’ll admit that saying you need to grow up is ad hominem, but your comments so far have been quite immature.

Sorry old chap, forgive my lack of sophistication please. I was blissfully unaware that human rights depend on some persons relative size.
So according to that measure big people, like adult male child predators, have more rights than a five year old?
By your measure child abusers would have more rights than those whom they abuse, as would any adult female over the baby they want to dismember.
Seems that I, myself, might be inline for “termination” if your arbitrary measure of “maturity” is what we are going by too!
How are you defining maturity?
When does a human being’s right to life stop? Is it when they are under a certain size? 2 years old perhaps?
The truth is that terminating a pregnancy always ends a human life. So it is a pretty black & white issue, religion aside. It’s not good for the baby or the mother.

No I don’t think arbitrary qualities like size or gender or ethnicity entitle one person to better rights than another. I actually can’t follow about a third of your last comment, but I’ll respond to the bits I understood.
I believe it is morally acceptable to kill a foetus under 12 weeks. Yes it is a living thing, but it has a long way to go before I’d consider it a human life, on a par with a newborn baby, a child or an adult.
The fact is, having a baby too early or late in life or with the wrong person can have a massive impact on a woman’s quality of life. To me this outweighs the right to life of a foetus in the very early stages of pregnancy.
As far as I’m concerned, people who won’t be materially affected by the abortion should mind their own business and allow the woman to choose. Their moral outrage does not entitle them to a say.
As for situations involving rape, still birth or risk to the mother, that should he a no-brainer for everyone. I think it is particularly cruel and potentially dangerous to refuse an abortion in such cases, as has been shown.
I’m not sure what the definition of immaturity is Leigh, but saying aborting an 11 week old foetus and killing a child are the same thing is, in my book, pretty ignorant of the complexity involved. And when you try to rate it alongside the abuse of children for shock value you are betraying a serious lack of understanding of either. Whether your opinions are religiously motivated or not, you just sound like a pr!#k.

@Fred you are wasting your time there is no point in arguing with the self righteous, they have all the answers. In the real world we know that the answers cannot be found in the Bronze Age writings of a middle-eastern tribe.

Leigh’s post. My comments are ending up everywhere and anywhere in this article.

Are you replying directly to the comment using the button below it, Orly?
I have let our tech team know that there may be an issue.
Aoife

This thread is being haunted by the Holy Ghost!

I think it might have happened to a couple of different posters in this comments section, based on the fact that people seem to be replying strangely to certain things.

I press the reply button below the post I want to reply to, yes. I got a new phone the other day and it could be that it’s acting up because of that. On the laptop instead now.

I’ve had problems with the reply too. It is pure pandemonium today.

“Despite numerous requests” seems to say they have tried

@ Cathy Burke, well and truly said.

Btw, the “oh grow up” comment was a reply to Leigh de Paor.

Grow up and become a manly baby killer? Is that what you mean?

No Leigh. I meant grow up and look at the issue from all sides, not just the extreme edge. Grow up and recognise that terminating a pregnancy is not as black and white as you let on. Grow up and stop characterising a very diverse group of people as child killers.

Leigh:
Why is it, that so many from the anti-abortion side will equate those to be in favour of a society where women have the choice to decide how they are best able to deal with a crisis pregnancy with those who would support infanticide and/or homicide on any human being who does not fit their perceived understanding of what’s “normal”.

Would I personally have to carefully consider my options if I was told my unborn baby was incompatible with life or disabled in a way that would seriously impact on their quality of life? Yes, of course…Though I cannot honestly say what the outcome would be, I believe that decision should be mine/ours. Are you willing to make that decision for me and deal with the potential fall out? (Marriage break down, other children in the family feeling sidelined?!) That decision does not just affect the feotus and its mother…it affects the whole family, quite often.

Would I abandon or even willfully harm or kill any child of mine that is born with a previously undetected disability/medical condition? Of course not! You’d make the best of the situation and would love that baby like you would any other child. Most parents would not do that, so stop trying to make out that to be the case!

That’s because the 8th amendment is a deeply flawed piece of legislation and needs to be repealed.

your correct in saying that what they want is currently constitutional. However they represent one of few if not only groups that have taken the boat to England and thus should be listened too.

What? The constitution is quite clear that abortion is permissible in circumstances where the life of the mother is under threat, which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in X to include risk of suicide, and this position reinforced and the need for legislation reiterated in A, B and C v. Ireland.

Now, either I need to ask for my money back for my legal training, or you need to stop bullsh!tting.

Granted, where the life of the mother isn’t under threat, then there’s no scope for abortions, even if the foetus is unviable.

So it appears I’m the bad guy here. Sorry John, you just have that kind of face.

Did the Judges in the “X” Case make an error of judgement?

In 1982 the then AG (Attorney General) advised the then Taoiseach CJH that the draft wording of the Constitutional Amendment was “flawed” and open to legal challenge.

CJH refused to accept the advice of the AG at that time!

A legal mess was thereby created.

Thanks to Fianna Fáil

113 physiatrists advised the current Government ( Fine Gael and Labour) that suicide should not be in the proposed legislation!

The Government have so far refused to accept their medical advice!

WHY?

Another big mistake under way!!

Sad reflection on Fine Gael !

I think there might be a problem with the reply button :/

There’s a solution to that Ollie.

Don’t demand one.
And as long as you don’t look at the airline passenger lists, you’l never have to see it.

Over the sea and under the carpet, an Oirish solution to a woman’s issue.
Makes us feel sooo saintly and scholarly.

We already have what you term “abortion on demand”, Olibhear. We just outsource it to England. The phrase implies abortion is a flippant decision made by expectant parents, which in my experience it is not. The motivations and feelings of parents who choose to terminate a pregnancy for personal, non-medical reasons are far too often misrepresented in this debate. Pro-life groups use the phrase to block abortion on all grounds. That’s why including the TFMR in the discussion is so important.

What?

I’m afraid to admit John has a point.

The committee is not having a broad discussion on abortion. If it was I’d also be troubled at the omission of this group.

Their strength in appearing on the Late Late Show was so powerful and it shows the need for action on this issue. However to bring about this issue we’d need to have a referendum.

The committee is specifically discussing legislative change within the existing constitution.

LoL try again ;)

Stop talking to yourself there John. You’ll frighten the chickens.