The South's abortion bill: insufficient or irrelevant?

There are those who believe that in order to divert our attention from the economic mess, our leaders and the media make much of other matters, frequently sexual: - gay marriage being an outstanding example of this. I think there’s some truth in that. Personally I don’t get it with regard to gay marriage. That is, I don’t see why those who have beliefs that see homosexuality as sinful should see gay marriage as something hellish. If anything they should be welcoming the element of fidelity which marriage, gay or straight, espouses. The fact that an awful lot of marriages collapse for one reason or another, and the fact that many young and not so young people are simply ignoring the wedding banns and co-habiting weakens that argument a little. But I don’t understand those people who feel that traditional marriage is somehow diluted or demeaned because of gay marriage. Maybe I’m missing something. 

I also don’t quite get the south’s abortion debate, which is raging at present. The suggestion is that abortion will be allowed if a pregnant woman is suicidal.   David Quinn the journalist and director of the Iona Institute is opposed to this and says that 113 Irish psychiatrists agree with him and are opposed to “suicidality” as grounds for an abortion. Those in favour of more readily-available abortion in the south say the proposed Bill won’t go far enough, as very few of the hundreds of women who go from Ireland to England for abortions are suicidal, so the Bill, even it allowed abortion for the few women deemed suicidal, wouldn’t address the problem.

The core question, I believe, is “What is a foetus?”  If it’s a human being, then it’s hard to see grounds for abortion, since that would involve intentional killing of a totally innocent human being. Those who argue for abortion only in cases of incest or rape seem to me plain wrong: while pregnancy because of rape or incest must be ghastly, it’s even more ghastly to put an end to the pregnancy by killing the totally innocent child.

If the answer to “What is a foetus?” is that it is not a human being, then abortion should be allowed at any point during pregnancy - from conception right through to the moments before birth. Why talk of difficult, harrowing decisions to abort if what’s being aborted isn’t a human? I’ve heard people talk about the foetus being a “potential human being” but I frankly don’t understand what that means, or maybe that it means too many things. You could have a potential human being if you left a couple of irresponsible teenagers, a boy and a girl, in a room alone. You could have a potential human being if a man thinks about raping a woman, let alone doing so. And that’s to ignore the difficulty concerning the linked contention that at some point the non-human foetus becomes a human being foetus. 

As to the argument which points out that every day, some dozen women leave Ireland to have an abortion in England, therefore Irish hospitals should provide abortions: that strikes me as totally spurious. The action of abortion is either right or wrong, and the fact that lots of people are doing it, or that services for doing it are available next door - these are grim facts but they have no bearing on the right or wrongness of aborting. 

Oh, and one last point. Those people who say that men should not form judgements in this matter since they don’t know what it’s like to carry a foetus would have to argue that prostate cancer, for example, is no business of women since they don’t get it, and that breast cancer is no concern of men since they don’t get it. The fact that you can’t have a particular condition, whether life-threatening or life-forming, has no bearing on your ability to form judgements about it. The only limitation on judgement, I would think, is your level of moral coarseness.

Why Gerry should come clean

Six reasons why Gerry Adams should admit he was a member of the IRA

1. It will give those of us who always tell the truth the opportunity to say “If he told a lie about his membership of the IRA, how can we trust him when he says anything else?” These would include such matters as tree-hugging, rubber ducks and the payment of his dog licence. 
2. It will remove any lingering belief that Mr Adams was secretly a senior RUC officer given unmerited promotion because of his personal friendship with Chief Constable Jack Hermon.
3. It will eliminate the possibility, popular in some circles,  that his goal is a united Ireland but one in which the country is ruled exclusively from London with Queen Elizabeth as head of state.
4. It will mean that his Dail questions about cuts in benefits and crippling national debt can be met with counter-questions about his personal role in every IRA operation since 1971. 
5. It will provide closure for those journalists who believe that it is in the public interest to know whether Gerry Adams was in the IRA or just openly supportive of it over the past forty years.  As things stand, these journalists are getting very little sleep, concerned as they are that someone may demand to know why they believe the distinction matters so much - beyond, of course, depriving them of the opportunity to source victims of IRA violence who can be  primed to spring out as the cameras roll and accuse Mr Adams of being a liar.  
6. Admission by Mr Adams that he was in the IRA will remove the appalling vista that at some point the public might begin to see some journalists as anti-republican, which of course they are not now and never have been.
7. Finally, it will allow Mr Adams, accompanied by Mr McGuinness, the chance to start going to confession regularly again. 

"It's our tradition" and other rubbish

Don’t you just love it?  The  Irish Cup final between Cliftonville and Glentoran is coming up. Cliftonville have a largely nationalist supporter base and Glentoran  have a largely unionist supporter base. Question: should they play ‘God Save The Queen’ before the game? That’s what I was mulling over on the Nolan Show  on BBC Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster this morning, along with the UUP's Jim Rodgers. 

OK, let me put my cards on the table. I don’t think national anthems, much less ‘Ireland’s Bawl’ should be played before sporting events. And please, don’t say it’s a tradition. There used to be a tradition of playing ‘God Save The Queen’ at the end of the pictures here  (that’s ‘movies’ for you younger people). There used to be a tradition of playing ‘God Save The Queen’ at the end of the day’s TV broadcasting. When I taught in Canada, they’d play ‘O Canada’ at the start of the school day and ‘God Save The Queen’ at the end. Thank God those daft traditions have been abandoned.  Because to say something is traditional is to say nothing. Some traditions are good, some bad. Slavery, no votes for women, racism, sending 10-year-olds up chimneys to sweep them - all those were once entrenched traditions. Now they’re not, and those of us not brain-damaged are very glad they have been. 

So I’d be in favour of ditching national anthems at the start of sporting events. All national anthems. Yes, yes, I know - they do it at international football games, they do it at the Olympics,, they even draw up a league table of which country has won most medals. Sad. Sad sad sad. Sportsmen and women don’t develop their talents for the sake of their country any more than artists or musicians or singers develop their talents for their country’s sake. Ars gratia artis - art for its own sake, sporting excellence for its own sake. 

However and alas, they have insisted on playing national anthems and they do insist on playing them. And when, as with the Irish Cup final, it’s proposed there is no national anthem,  unionism (Jim Rodgers et al) are up in arms - another bit of chipping away our you-know-what. No, Jim et al. What this is doing is achieving  balance. Two teams, Cliftonville and Glentoran. Cliftonville largely nationalist/republican supporters, Glentoran largely unionist/loyalist supporters.  The balanced thing to do is obvious - either you play both the Irish and the British national anthem, or you play none. Anything else is an unbalanced decision. And no, no, no, no - DON’T tell me “We’ve always played it before”. That, like hanging people, doesn’t make it right. So hats off to the IFA this one time at least. You’ve made a courageous, sensible decision not to play. Let’s hope you’ve the guts to stick by it now. 

The Orange Order: marching to a different drum?

I was listening to the Nolan Show yesterday as I drove to the meeting of the British-Irish Secretariat yesterday and the difference between the two events couldn’t have been more marked. In the MAC Theresa and Eamon were all sweet reasonableness, feeling good about what’s been achieved and hungry to achieve more. On the Nolan Show,  a couple of bare-knuckle fighters were having a discussion about how the Orange Order had broken the terms of its march past St Patrick’s Church. It’s what you might call shadow and substance, the shadow being with Theresa and Eamon. 

It’s an interesting institution, the Orange Order. I once said in a broadcast that it was an anti-Catholic institution and was told by a prominent Protestant clergyman that such a statement said more about me than it did about the Orange Order. And I expect lots of people listening agreed with him. But then again, that wouldn’t mean I was wrong. I expect the same will happen to what I now say.

The Orange Order is an anti-Catholic organisation. Anyone who has  taken even the most cursory reading of its founding and history will see that that is the case. Anyone who looks at the rules that govern it (I really don’t have to go into those again, do I?) will see that that is the case. Republicans in general and particularly Sinn Féin say that there are just a handful of contested parades, and that otherwise they have no problem with the Orange Order celebrating its culture. I disagree. If I’m right that the Order is anti-Catholic, then it isn’t simply at flashpoints that it becomes anti-Catholic  - it’s anti-Catholic everywhere.

“Total hogwash!” you're saying. “For the vast majority of Orangemen and their families, the Twelfth is just a good day out - they have no wish to engage in anti-Catholic sentiment”.  That's probably true. Many people belonging to the Order have, over time, detached their awareness of the Order’s nature and replaced it with what the Order delivers - a bit of craic in a boring summer. 

But that doesn’t mean the Order’s nature is changed and it doesn’t alter the fact that there are some 3000 parades by the loyal Orders each year. The great bulk of those parades are intent on reminding Catholics/nationalists/republicans that ‘their side’ was hammered in battle hundreds of years ago. And then people affect to be surprised that Catholics/nationalists/republicans should object to the thousands of parades. 

I believe there are many unionists  increasingly embarrassed by the Orange Order, its refusal to talk to the people it is offending, the general ugliness of many of its bands and the sneaking suspicion that what I and others say is in fact the truth: the Orange Order is an anti-Catholic institution. In a state where respect as well as equality are claimed as core rights, it’s really time it packed up its sectarianism in its old kit bag and left the stage. 

Eamon and Theresa: dancing in the dark

There was a meeting of the British-Irish Secretariat today.  It was held in the MAC in Belfast and it had two big political beasts (metaphorically speaking) performing: British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers and Irish Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore.  Theresa said that British-Irish relations had never been better than they are now. And thanks to the British, Irish and US  governments, terrorism had ended. Fifteen years from the Good Friday Agreement,  the big priority for the next fifteen would be to fix the economy and provide jobs. 

Tanaiste Eamon said the Good Friday Agreement had “put the politics of the past in the past and left it there”.  When he was fifteen or sixteen, he said, people were still talking about the Civil War; he, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in the past - he was interested in the future. 

There were then a series of questions from young people .One youngster asked what did Theresa and Eamon think was the biggest achievement of the Good Friday Agreement. Eamon said an end to the killings was its big achievement, and made reference to tit-for-tat killings.  Theresa said “I agree”.

I know I should have been cheered up by the meeting but I found depressing.  As I sat and listened to the young people’s questions and the two  politicians’ careful answers, it struck me that the whole operation was a dance of sorts. In the middle of the room was a big smelly gorilla, scratching itself and glowering, while the speakers danced round it, eyes averted.

What gorilla? The gorilla behind the Troubles, the gorilla at the heart of our differences. Partition, British Presence, Irish Unity - it has several names. Quite right, Eamon and Theresa, we all want to press on to a better future, one with jobs and economic stability and equality.  But if we’re so petrified by the possibility of sinking back into our bloody past that we can’t even tell ourselves what it was about, there’s little chance we’ll push on to a future with our eyes wide open.  And heading anywhere with half-shut eyes is hazardous.  

David Cameron - just a dad. Honest.

When you hear David Cameron weaseling on about football, you begin (or continue) to be worried about his reasoning abilities as a prime minister. Before ever the FA had delivered its verdict on Luis Suarez and Teethgate, Cameron was in there like a shot announcing that the normal three-match ban would definitely not be enough. When Suarez got hit for ten games, Liverpool FC not unreasonably said that Cameron’s statements before the decision were likely to have influenced those who handed Suarez ten weeks. 

Oh no, Cameron said. Oh no no no no. “I made my own views clear just as a dad watching the game. I’ve got a seven-year-old who just loves watching football...Bringing up children is one of the toughest things we do but you can’t wrap them in cottonwool and hide them away from the world, they do see these real-life examples and they repeat them back to you.”

Where to start?  David old chum, when you make your views clear you do at as the Prime Minister of England. If you were just a regular dad, you wouldn’t be reported in the newspapers.  And if you can’t see that your urging of a heavier ban wouldn’t have put pressure on the FA to come up with something thumping, then you shouldn’t be running a country. As to your child watching TV - does he react to everything he sees on TV? Say in an average game, there are - what -  twenty free kicks. These are usually not for biting but for pulling people’s shirts, elbowing them in the face, kicking their shins, jumping on their foot, complaining loudly and persistently to the referee.  Does your wee lad “repeat those back” to you? As a keen soccer fan he must be watching them every week of the season. And what about movies where people get shot - you figure maybe he...No, stop me somebody, stop me. Let’s just say Cameron is one more toff climbing on the footballing bandwagon who then denies doing any such thing and presents himself as a “dad”.  I wonder how many bad habits his child picks up, just watching Dad around the house. Or even watching him on TV arguing the case for nuclear weapons.

I think I’d better go into a darkened room and lock the door behind me. I’m getting this terrible desire to seek out a prime minister and bite him. 

Micheal Martin: a far-seeing bird?

Micheal Martin reminds me of the Skibbereen Eagle. Not in appearance, more in tone and self-image.   You remember that newspaper’s famous declaration in 1914: “We give this solemn warning to Kaiser Wilhelm: The Skibbereen Eagle has its eye on you”.  Micheal is a wee bit that way too.  In his speech at Arbour Hill last Sunday, Martin announced that the British and Irish governments had taken their eyes off the North, showing “a clear and dangerous lack of commitment”. 

Well, well. He’s right but sort of in the same way that I’m right when I look out my window at 9.00 am and announce that it’s daylight. When the northern state was formed, Britain passed over the running of it to unionist politicians and what followed was fifty years of discrimination and gerrymandering. During that same period the southern government - almost always Fianna Fail - made patriotic noises at regular intervals but did nothing to right the wrongs of the north or to make any movement towards the realisation of the goal of unity it claimed to revere. And of course when the crisis came in 1969 Jack Lynch, the Fianna Fail leader in whose footsteps Micheal would one day follow, announced that south could not stand idly by. Which it then proceeded to do. 

Micheal has declared the north’s political institutions to be in a  “dysfunctional state” and that this provides a dangerous vacuum. The Irish Times this morning features his warning and accepts it unquestioningly. This, from a party leader in the south where under Fianna Fail the state crumbled under the weight of  corruption and mismanagement, leaving future generations to pick up the tab.  

A blind man on a galloping horse could tell you what Micheal is really concerned with in his Arbour Hill analysis. He wants to underscore the ‘Republican’  in his party’s strap line ‘The Republican Party’, and in doing so lay claim to be the party that really cares about all of Ireland, not just the southern state. In other words, to win back those southern voters who currently see Sinn Féin as the only party which gives a damn about Ireland as distinct from the 26 southern counties. 

Will it work? Well, when the SDLP abandoned its post-nationalist stance and emoted about its concern for the entire country, it didn’t work. The voters looked at them and then at Sinn Féin and decided to go for the real thing rather than the lite version. It’ll be interesting to see in the next opinion polls if Micheal’s Arbour Hill speech makes a difference. My guess is it'll prove more of a cock sparrow than an eagle.