A tale of two countries, a choice between two cultures

In one country the President recently addressed the annual and widely supported pro-life March, calling it ‘a movement born out of love’.

Across the Atlantic, the leader of the main opposition party in another country just caved in to what most in the media would have us believe is the prevailing sentiment within that jurisdiction—and with it the inevitability of legalized abortion. With the Prime Minister and the political establishment of various ideological shades pushing strongly for a ‘Yes’ vote in a forthcoming referendum on the legalization of abortion, one wonders where the voice for the opposing view will come from in that land.

The first country, of course, is the United States. The second one is Ireland. The first has witnessed the deadly effects of abortion since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade; the second has forgotten or become blind to how much good has been done since a protection for mother and unborn child was enshrined in its constitution in 1983.

With a referendum looming, the majority of Irish politicians, are, even now, still officially ‘undecided’. No doubt they wish to see which way the wind of Irish popular opinion is blowing so as to ensure the survival of their parliamentary seats.

The Irish media is liberal to the core. Its attitude to the Irish pro-life movement is dismissive and often openly hostile; it presents the pro-life position, always, as a minority opinion. Newspapers such as The Irish Times have become all but campaigners for the repeal of the Irish Constitution’s 8th Amendment—the constitutional safeguard for the unborn child, and the subject of the forthcoming referendum. The word ‘compassionate’ has been hijacked by the Irish media—without challenge—to characterize those who wish to introduce the abortion mills onto Irish soil. While the media portrays one side as being all about ‘choice’, the other is sidelined not as ‘pro-life’ but as ‘anti-abortion’; a position heavily associated with a negative, petty mindset, and a throwback to an Ireland now long since consigned to history books.

Of course, pro-lifers are anti-abortion. Most people conversant with the facts of what is involved in abortion are against abortion, even the pro-choice side does not wish to be identified as ‘pro-abortion’. So if the medical procedure is not the essential issue, then what is? The word ‘choice’ lends a clue. Choosing what? And, for whom?

The ongoing debate about whether to abolish the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution is not just about ethics and philosophy, or about a public health provision. It is about whether a life exists in the womb, and whether anyone has the right to play God with that life. One can’t help thinking that each person now living was once that child in the womb. Today many are self-declared ‘former embryos for life’.

Ireland does not yet have the bloody legacy of the post-Roe v. Wade United States. Nor has it witnessed firsthand the effects of the eugenics agenda of other European countries such as Iceland and Denmark where Downs Syndrome children have been all but eradicated. Many in Ireland seem unwilling, however, to look at or listen to anything other than its own biased media, which tirelessly plies the lie that abortion is somehow progressive—and a ‘human right’. In the light of the experiences of other countries, many in Ireland are simply closing their eyes to the consequences and nature of abortion, preferring instead to believe the stereotypes constructed of nasty ‘anti-abortionists’ and ‘compassionate’ pro-choicers. Sadly, it is always easier to go with the crowd, even if it is straight into the abyss.

So be it. Just let it be stated clearly that in the forthcoming referendum it is not legislative change that Ireland is voting on but a cultural revolution—one described so well by St. John Paul II as “the culture of death”, a culture that is “actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency”. The introduction of abortion into Ireland will change the country and its citizens in ways that have not yet been envisioned, for generations to come, and in ways future generations shall come to view with bitter regret.