And so, as predicted entirely, the government’s abortion review continues on its carefully chosen path of avoiding any real examination of the outcomes of the abortion act, and simply using the tired and tarnished process to push for an even more liberal regime in Ireland.
8,500 abortions in one year isn’t enough it seems. We must have more.
RTE reports that barrister Marie O’Shea, chair of the Review, will tell the government that she is seeking changes – and they are sweeping changes – to the law even though Minister Stephen Donnelly has told News at 1, with a disquieting note of enthusiasm in his delivery, that a huge jump in the number of abortions took place in 2022.
O’Shea was to tell the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health that making the abortion law more liberal would require “strong leadership and courage”. Is she for real?
The entire establishment, including most of the media and the taxpayer-funded NGOs, are cheering for more abortion. Courage is the last thing that’s needed.
Arguing for a liberalisation of the law, O’Shea argues that voters could not have foreseen the difficulties with the abortion act before they voted on it – a bizarre claim given that what she calls difficulties were specifically advertised and promoted as restrictions and safeguards and a reason to vote for Repeal.
She might reflect on the fact that it would have taken some real courage from herself to actually challenge the establishment’s narrative on the deeply shocking outcomes of the abortion law.
If she had mustered that courage, here are just 3 of the things she should have raised today but sadly didn’t.
Some 95% of babies that are diagnosed with Down syndrome at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin are now being aborted, the then master of the hospital, Dr Fergal Malone told the Irish Times in 2022,
In response, Conor O’Dowd, a young man with Down syndrome, delivered a letter to the Rotunda maternity hospital urging them to ‘save babies’ after Dr Malone made his remarks.
Malone had previously said in 2018 that “approximately half” of all parents with a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome aborted the baby – while the other half did not.
Conor’s father, Michael O’Dowd, a disability rights campaigner, said that the claim that 95% of parents at the Irish maternity hospital were aborting where the baby had Down Syndrome was like a “gut punch – and urged the Rotunda to review how it was handling the issue.
Conor gave a heartfelt speech at the hospital, directly addressing Prof Malone. “I love my life”, the young chef and photographer said, “I don’t understand why people are trying to take away people with Down syndrome.”
Bravo Conor O’Dowd!👏🏻
Young man with Down Syndrome tells Dublin hospital to "Save babies" after learning that 95% of babies with the condition are abortedhttps://t.co/cx3b8EzUS4 pic.twitter.com/KKEHB9SWI8
— Youth for Life NI (@YouthforLifeNI2) January 3, 2023
Yet, the shocking revelations didn’t seem to warrant the review’s attention.
If only Helen O’Shea had the courage to raise the fact that the trend in Ireland is heading in the same direction as in Britain and Denmark, where babies with Down Syndrome are effectively being almost completely eliminated.
As a barrister, you might have expected her to raise the human rights considerations regarding the possibility of the near-elimination of a community of people with a disability. That didn’t happen.
2. At least 3 babies have been aborted after a misdiagnosis of a severe disability
The ink was barely dry on the abortion legislation when a perfectly healthy 16-week baby boy was aborted on the basis of a misdiagnosis at the National Maternity Hospital.
The parents of the baby boy indicated they felt under pressure to abort their child, and were told not to wait for the result of a second test.
After the abortion, the final results of the test came back and the baby, who his parents had named Christopher, was found to be perfectly healthy, but by then it was too late.
The abortion has been described as a “catastrophic error” – but the parents are still fighting for a satisfactory inquiry into what happened.
Now we have learned that there are MORE such horrifying cases.
The 2018 legislation allows abortion to take place without term limits if the baby is believed to have a life-limiting condition that means the child might not live for more than 28 days after birth.
Information released to Peadar Tóibín TD shows that the State is currently being sued in two ongoing cases of a wrongful diagnosis in relation to the abortion act.
The State Claims Agency confirmed that there were “two ongoing claims from persons alleging that their unborn baby was wrongfully diagnosed with a condition sufficient to bring them within the scope of the Health Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018″.
Is it simply astounding that Marie O’Shea did not examine this aspect of the operation of the Abortion Act. The details of the Baby Christopher case were widely reported after his parents sought redress in the High Court and won damages from the hospital.
Yet this high-profile case was not mentioned by Marie O’Shea in her report for the abortion review. And she didn’t have the gumption to raise these cases today.
3. The huge rise in abortions taking place
Some 6,666 abortions took place in Ireland in 2019, the first year of the abortion regime – more than double the number of abortions which had been carried out on 2,879 women who travelled to Britain for the procedure in 2018. An unknown number of women, estimated by some at 1,000 or more, also took abortion pills in that year.
The appalling rise in the abortion rate in 2019 reversed almost a decade of decline in the number of abortions undergone by women living in Ireland.
And the rise is continuing on a devastating upward trajectory.
This massive upwards shift was predicted by pro-life activists during the 2018 referendum and strongly denied by abortion campaigners including members of government.
Surely that was an issue for Marie O’Shea to raise in her report and at the Oireachtas Committee today?
But she didn’t have the courage or leadership to present the political establishment – or the people – with the truth about these outcomes, or to challenge the establishment narrative.
Unborn babies are perhaps the most vulnerable people in our society today. Their right to life has been stripped away, they are helpless and voiceless, and now powerful forces are working to diminish them further.
It would have taken courage and leadership for the Chair of a review to point that out to the Oireachtas today. Those attributes were conspicuous by their absence.