Last week, the Deputy Political Editor at the Irish Independent opined that the size of the demonstration that had been organised (to much media fanfare) to protest the plans for the National Maternity Hospital could “determine the next phase” of the controversy.
If that’s the case, the distinctly underwhelming turnout on Saturday should send a powerful message alright to the government: that no-one really cares about who owns the land or about the never-ending whining from the usual suspects, whose obsession with abortion became unhinged a long time ago.
The protest had been very well advertised: in fact the amount of coverage given to this ridiculous issue would have you believing it is the most important issue facing the country now, with impassioned speeches in the Dáil, non-stop discussion on the airwaves, and the increasingly conspiratorial tone of hysteria about the nuns reaching fever-pitch.
The media were, of course, out in force to cover the demo, just as they will always turn up in droves to cover two lunatics and a dog who want abortion legislation expanded. But even their wide-angle lens couldn’t hide that it was a smallish crowd, a bit of a damp squib, a great to-do about nothing. Only a couple of hundred people bothered to show up.
All the NGOs and the perpetually-watchful TDs were there, and seemed to make up most of the crowd. One poster demanded that the State needed to rule everything, like the One Ring of Sauron or something.
Most of the speakers were past child-bearing age but really, really didn’t like the nuns. Peter Boylan, the media’s favourite doctor ever after his strong pro-abortion stance in the 2018 referendum, gave an ominous warning about some Vatican document. It was all a bit Dan Brown.
I last gave birth in the National Maternity Hospital twelve years ago, and though the midwives were lovely, it was a bit crowded and chaotic. One woman, who had come in just after me, gave birth in the corridor as there wasn’t room anywhere else – on a bed and behind a screen, but still very far from ideal.
Women in Ireland have needed a new Maternity Hospital, then, for absolutely years and these delays are not just absurd but dangerous. Despite the assertions of campaigners – many of whom are now involved in delaying the new Maternity Hospital – repealing the 8th did not seem to make women any safer, and women continue to die in our overcrowded, under-resourced maternity units.
Just this month, the HSE admitted negligence and breach of duty in the heart-breaking case of Marie Downey, who was epileptic and died after falling from her bed while breast-feeding her baby boy three days after giving birth at Cork University Maternity Hospital. Baby Darragh died too, after suffering an irreversible brain injury while being trapped under his mother. He was buried in Marie’s arms: an unimaginable tragedy.
Marie’s husband Kieran told the inquest into her death that he believed both his wife and his son would still be alive if her epilepsy had been properly monitored and treated.
This month, it was confirmed that an external review has commenced into the death of a mother – named as Tatenda Faith Mukwata – in a Kerry hospital after giving birth to a baby girl.
We seem to hear very little about these tragic cases, and far too much about the demands of those who feel threatened by any vague, vanishingly unlikely, possibility that some doctor, some where, at some time, might feel abortion is not the best course of action.
It’s a pity that such caution wasn’t present when the parents of Baby Christopher, aborted after a misdiagnosis of a severe disability, felt pushed towards ending the life of their little boy, a decision that left them traumatised and still seeking justice.
I imagine the protest didn’t attract the support of the thousands of women who give birth each year, because they realise their safety – and a new hospital – is more important than some gripe with the nuns, whatever dire warnings are issued by campaigners.
The rest of the public have other pressing concerns: housing and the lack of it; a cost of living crisis; healthcare waiting lists and more to contend with. Most of them just want the hospital built. Time to move on.