Abortion/ *Note* Thread Closing Shortly! ! !

Penn

Sarky wrote: »

An impressive amount of people using the #prolife hashtag on Twitter today to express their glee at Gosnell getting the death penalty, without a trace of irony. What the f*ck is wrong with those people?

He's not a poor wee innocent baby, so his life doesn't matter.

Morag

nagirrac wrote: »

There may be a demand for late term abortion, but this incident does the pro choice side no good whatsoever and should be condemned by all sides of the debate.

It has been.

Penn

Morag wrote: »

It has been.

Agreed. Saw on Twitter that 9/12 of the jurors were pro-choice.

What that guy did wasn't abortion. It was murder.

robindch

Morag wrote: »

nagirrac wrote: »

There may be a demand for late term abortion, but this incident does the pro choice side no good whatsoever and should be condemned by all sides of the debate.

It has been.

A copy of Alive proprag appeared in my letterbox yesterday and I had a quick flick through it before dropping it into the recycle bin.

It had some article condemning the lack of coverage in the "Liberal Media". Oddly though, I didn't immediately see anything saying that the "proaborts" -- as the pro-choice side are called by fundamentalists -- were using the Gosnell case as a political tool to promote their point of view. Give them time though and I'm sure they'll manage it.

Just observing the propaganda though (and I'm recalling the "no coverage" claim that Jimitime made some weeks ago), what's interesting to note is that the agitprop for both catholic and protestant fundamentalists has been pretty much identical for some years. I assume because EWTN is acquiring them from Fox News and other conservative outlets and morphing it into catholic fundamentalist agitprop.

nagirrac

Morag wrote: »

It has been.

Remaining silent on a crime of this magnitude is a moral failure. I live in the US and as a liberal and pro choice (up to viability) supporter, I can assure you that this case has had close to zero coverage in the media. Naturally the pro life side will use this as propaganda, but it raises an important question which very few in the media are willing to touch. Why is a case of this magnitude not being covered and why have there been almost no opinion pieces being written on it?

The honest answer is that late term abortion is an ethical problem for many on the pro choice side. It is cowardice in the extreme for the media to not report on a story because it makes them feel bad. Megan McArdle, who is pro choice and not some fundamentalist conservative, wrote a good piece on this moral dilemna.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/12/why-the-mainstream-media-is-not-covering-the-gosnell-abortion-trial.html


My main point is that this case will do damage to the pro choice cause and should have been addressed head on, even if that meant condemning late term abortion on demand which is what Gosnell was offering at his "clinic".

Sarky

Perhaps you're not listening to enough media? On Boards alone you can't move without tripping over a Gosnell reference. I don't think the problem is where you're claiming it is.

nagirrac

Sarky wrote: »

Perhaps you're not listening to enough media? On Boards alone you can't move without tripping over a Gosnell reference. I don't think the problem is where you're claiming it is.

That's because the abortion debate is so current in Ireland. I am referring to the American media sarky which I listen to and watch as much as possible. There is a serious issue with coverage in the US and the issue is nobody wants to touch the ethical question of late term abortion, its too uncomfortable.

Morag

I think there has been coverage going back the last 3 years, it depends how you get your news delivered to you and if you rely on certain media companies.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/04/16/a-roundup-of-reporting-on-the-kermit-gosnell-case/

t takes one bad abortion clinic…, Kate Harding, Salon, February 24, 2010

Doctor Is Charged in Killing of Newborns, Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, January 19, 2011

‘House of horrors’ alleged at abortion clinic, MSNBC, January 19, 2011

Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell charged with murdering 7 infants with scissors, Lauren Johnston, New York Daily News, January 19, 2011

Why the Pa. Abortion Doc’s Case Is About Poverty, Not Roe v. Wade, Belinda Luscombe, Time, January 20, 2011

The Twisted Abortion Doctor, Michelle Goldberg, The Daily Beast, January 20, 2011

Kermit Gosnell, Phila. Abortion Doctor, Seems Confused by Murder Charges, Shocked by No Bail, Caroline Black, CBS News, January 21, 2011

Kermit Gosnell Abortion Clinic Was Not Inspected For 17 Years, Marian Wang, ProPublica January 21, 2011

Philly abortion clinic horror highlights need for more access, Lori Adelman,The Grio, January 21, 2011

Squalid Abortion Clinic Escaped State Oversight, Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, January 22, 2011

Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s Horror Show, Katha Pollitt, The Nation, January 27, 2011

How Kermit Gosnell Got Over—and Poor Women of Color Paid the Price, Akiba Solomon, Colorlines, February 1, 2011

Doctor accused of severing babies’ spines with scissors in ‘house of horrors’, CNN, Mark Morganstein, March 4, 2013

Abortion Doctor’s Murder Trial Opens, The New York Times, Jon Hurdle, March 18, 2013

In Kermit Gosnell abortion case, ex-employees say clinic was horrific place, Maryclaire Dale, Washington Post, April 12, 2013

Kermit Gosnell, Abortion Doctor, Enters 5th Week Of Murder Trial; More Gruesome Details Revealed, Maryclaire Dale, Washington Post, April 15, 2013

The Gosnell case: Here’s what you need to know, Sarah Kliff, Washington Post, April 15, 2013

Five Lessons from the Gosnell Abortion-Clinic Controversy, Scott Lemieux, The American Prospect, April 15, 2013

Kermit Gosnell trial: Will it affect abortion rights?, Linda Feldman, Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 2013

If More Funding Went to Safe, Legal Abortions, Would Kermit Gosnell Have Happened?, Jeff Deeney, The Atlantic, April 15, 2013

Kermit Gosnell Murder Trial: Pennsylvania abortion doctor’s trial enters 5th week, CBS News, April 15, 2013

The real Kermit Gosnell story? Misogyny, Jill Filipovic, Al Jazeera, April 16, 2013

What the Gosnell Horror Reveals About the Abortion Debate, Sarah Seltzer, The Jewish Daily Forward, April 17, 2013

Morag

nagirrac wrote: »

Remaining silent on a crime of this magnitude is a moral failure. I live in the US and as a liberal and pro choice (up to viability) supporter, I can assure you that this case has had close to zero coverage in the media. Naturally the pro life side will use this as propaganda, but it raises an important question which very few in the media are willing to touch. Why is a case of this magnitude not being covered and why have there been almost no opinion pieces being written on it?

The honest answer is that late term abortion is an ethical problem for many on the pro choice side. It is cowardice in the extreme for the media to not report on a story because it makes them feel bad. Megan McArdle, who is pro choice and not some fundamentalist conservative, wrote a good piece on this moral dilemna.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/12/why-the-mainstream-media-is-not-covering-the-gosnell-abortion-trial.html


My main point is that this case will do damage to the pro choice cause and should have been addressed head on, even if that meant condemning late term abortion on demand which is what Gosnell was offering at his "clinic".

Many of those women were having later term abortions due to the lack of affordable services near to them. Some women in the USA have to travel a lot further then Irish women do and the time and costs factors means they have to save up or find away to borrow money to have the abortion which means they end up having later abortions.

It is one of the reasons New York has such a high rate of abortions at 20 to 22 weeks as women travel there from all over the usa when they find out services close to them only offer the abortion pill to 9 weeks or only do surgical to 12 weeks or 16 weeks and then have to travel further.

When zoning laws, town by laws and state laws are being used to limit services desperate people will resort to desperate measures, such as going to disreputable clinics and turning a blind eye to what they see there.

lazygal

The Gosnell case illustrates the lengths women will go to to terminate pregnancy, and why its better to make safe, legal, free and/or affordable abortion services accessible to all women. Such services should be well funded and regulated. Making abortion difficult to access only hurts women, and doesn't show respect for them.

The Black Oil

I heard about the Gosnell case via NPR. Pretty mainstream.

Friday will be interesting in this part of the world. http://www.thejournal.ie/heres-what-we-know-about-the-oireachtas-abortion-hearings-909017-May2013/

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0514/392255-abortion-oireachtas-committee/

Oh, Women Hurt. Wonder how they got in there.

Bobby42

So the Oireachtas hearings are meant to only hear from medical and legal experts, no pro life or pro choice groups, just experts.

But they've made an exception for an anti abortion group, women hurt, a group of women who regret having an abortion, who will get to brief oireachtas members.

Some nice balance there.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0514/392255-abortion-oireachtas-committee/

Nice pic with the RTE article, silhouette of a woman looking all regretful/shunned.

Morag

Oh that's got me cross, soo cross, I am going to email Jerry in the morning.

nagirrac

lazygal wrote: »

The Gosnell case illustrates the lengths women will go to to terminate pregnancy, and why its better to make safe, legal, free and/or affordable abortion services accessible to all women. Such services should be well funded and regulated. Making abortion difficult to access only hurts women, and doesn't show respect for them.

I agree, with the caveat the first priority should be education and free / affordable contraception for everyone, male and female. Abortion has been legal in the US since 1973 and protected by constitutional guarantee. The issue is where do you draw the line between a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy and the rights of a foetus to live, and I think most people, even on the pro choice side, agree the line should be drawn at viability. The majority of US states draw the line at viability or 24 weeks. Clearly there are medical exceptions and these should be legislated for.

nagirrac

Morag wrote: »

Many of those women were having later term abortions due to the lack of affordable services near to them. Some women in the USA have to travel a lot further then Irish women do and the time and costs factors means they have to save up or find away to borrow money to have the abortion which means they end up having later abortions.

It is one of the reasons New York has such a high rate of abortions at 20 to 22 weeks as women travel there from all over the usa when they find out services close to them only offer the abortion pill to 9 weeks or only do surgical to 12 weeks or 16 weeks and then have to travel further.

When zoning laws, town by laws and state laws are being used to limit services desperate people will resort to desperate measures, such as going to disreputable clinics and turning a blind eye to what they see there.

I agree with all that, but legally you have to draw the line somewhere and the US Supreme court in its wisdom decided that abortion was not an absolute right, that the line was viabilty, and after that point left it up to the individual states to legislate, provided they met certain guidelines (life and health, physician makes the decision).

I agree it is a very difficult issue, but at the end of the day you find yourself trying to justifiy late term abortion due to personal circumstances and not medical reasons. I think the Supreme court evaluated this carefully which is why they ruled as they did.

Obliq

Morag wrote: »

Oh that's got me cross, soo cross, I am going to email Jerry in the morning.

Done.

robindch

More on Cardinal O'Malley's decision to throw himself out of the pram:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/13/cardinal-malley-decision-boycott-graduation-has-ring-hypocrisy/0F304hjo62Z9GSYzrzrciK/story.html

Boston Globe wrote:

The only thing I have in common with Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda ­Kenny, besides a sheer, unadulterated love of everything about County Mayo, is that we’ve both incurred the wrath of a group of ­local zealots called the Catholic Action League.

These people would be deeply offensive if they weren’t so deliciously comical. They are self-righteous, self-appointed keepers of the faith, who especially like pointing out that a la carte Catholics — that is, most Catholics, who use contraception, don’t think gay folks are disordered, and believe that people should be allowed to get a ­divorce — do not belong in their church. I have fallen afoul of the Catholic Action League many times, most recently when I had the audacity to point out that if Jesus Christ came back to earth he would have been appalled by the spectre of the recent papal election, in which more than a few of the cardinals voting amid much pomp and circumstance had protected predatory priests who raped children. I instead lauded four ordinary priests who should be, but never will be pope.

C.J. Doyle, the executive director of the Catholic Action League, took great offense at the column, suggesting in a letter to the editor that I was insulting the intelligence of “faithful Catholics” by trying to pass off my “dissident friends” as “real Catholics.” That’s the Catholic Action League for you. Keepin’ it real.

Now, you may have heard the Catholic Action League demanded that Boston ­College rescind its invitation to poor Enda Kenny, the taoiseach, or prime minister, of Ireland to attend its commencement ­because he has proposed legislation, on the orders of Ireland’s highest court, that would create an exception to Ireland’s strict prohibition on abortion by making it legal for doctors to abort a fetus if it would save the life of the mother. Pretty radical stuff, huh? The caped Crusaders in the Catholic ­Action League love pointing out how hypocritical Catholics who use condoms and don’t chain their heads to parking meters outside abortion clinics are. They are less forthcoming when it comes to pointing out the hypocrisy of the Catholic bishops who will sit and sup at the feet of some of the worst enablers of sexual abuse in history.

Now, one of those bishops, the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, also made some news by announcing that he agreed with the Catholic Action League, that he could not in good conscience attend the Boston College graduation next Monday at which the aforementioned Enda Kenny, prime minister of Ireland, is to ­receive an honorary degree and give the commencement speech. O’Malley accused Kenny of “aggressively promoting abortion legislation,” which is an odd way to describe a democratically elected leader of a republic following the mandatory legal advice of the highest court in the land.

I would be the first guy to defend the cardinal’s right to skip the BC graduation. But his reasoning is embarrassingly flawed and his selectivity in whom he deems ­worthy of his presence is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. Enda Kenny, as the duly elected prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, has a duty to respond to court decisions ordering his government to find an exception to ­Ireland’s strict prohibition against abortion so that doctors and other health care workers can take steps to save the life of a ­woman in a troubled pregnancy.

Women in Ireland have died because there is no exception to the law. Most recent­ly, it was a 31-year-old woman named Savita Halappanavar, a native of ­India who was working as a dentist in Ireland while her husband worked in Galway for the Natick-based firm Boston Scientific. When her husband learned the 17-week-old fetus his wife was carrying was non­viable, he begged the doctors to terminate the pregnancy to save his wife. The doctors pointed at the law, threw up their hands, and said there was nothing they could do. When Praveen Halappanavar expressed exasperation that no one was lifting a finger to save his dying wife, someone tried to explain it by saying, “This is a Catholic country.” An inquest last year found that Savita Halappanavar would most likely still be alive if the law in Ireland allowed for an abortion in that circumstance. I am sure Cardinal O’Malley is sincere in his point of view that abortion is wrong, but I’d like to see him try to convince Praveen Halappanavar that non-Catholics like the Halappanavars have to abide by the Catholic Church’s edicts even if it means the death of a mother carrying a fetus that had no chance at life. OK, enough of the Kafka­esque stuff. Let’s get back to the hypocrisy stuff.

Cardinal O’Malley won’t share a stage with Enda Kenny, a good man who is personally opposed to abortion but knows that his duty as the elected leader of a sovereign nation is not to impose his personal beliefs but to adhere to the Irish Constitution and the Irish people who embody that Constitution. But, while voting for pope, Cardinal O’Malley had no problem sitting in the same room as Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, who belongs not in the Sistine Chapel but San Quentin for his shameless protection of predatory priests who raped children.

Needless to say, Cardinal O’Malley’s snub of Boston College and Enda Kenny is going down well with the Catholic ­Action League, but it’s also going down well with the Vatican, where the prime minister of Ireland is viewed as a dangerous heretic. When the clerical sexual abuse crisis exploded in ­Ireland, it was a blast caused by the scandal that unfolded right here in Boston. Irish people ­began demanding answers. The adults who as children were beaten and raped and psychologically ravaged while under the care of priests and brothers and nuns in Catholic orphanages and workhouses demanded justice.

Kenny’s predecessor, Bertie Ahern, indemnified the Catholic Church in Ireland to the tune of $1 billion. So the taxpayers of Ireland, not the Catholic institutions who protected the predators, paid the bulk of the redress handed out to victims. When Kenny became prime minister, he sounded a different tune. Two years ago, after the release of yet another report that showed how Irish bishops and the Vatican downplayed the rape and torture of Irish children by clerical predators, Enda Kenny found his indignation and his voice. He rose in the Dail, Ireland’s parliament, and accused the Vatican of caring more about maintaining its power than protecting children.

“The Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism that dominate the culture of the ­Vatican today,” Kenny said. “The rape and the torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, its standing, and its reputation. Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St. Benedict’s ‘ear of the heart,’ the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.”

The bishops can try to say with a straight face that none of them should take to the stage with Enda Kenny because he is about to propose legislation to legalize abortion in some rare instances, but let’s be honest here: Kenny is hated by the Catholic hierarchy for that aching­ly honest and courageous speech he gave in the Dail in 2011. Having reread the speech, I don’t think Boston College should be giving Kenny a ­degree. They should be giving him a medal.

Cardinal O’Malley is a very learned man, and he understands logic, and so by his logic I’m assuming he will not be accept­ing any money from all those well-heeled BC alums who are big donors to the archdiocese, because BC gives honorary degrees to people like ­Enda Kenny who want to save the lives of women who might die in difficult pregnancies.

Look, I was always fond of Cardinal O’Malley. I’ve written about him in very positive terms many times. He cares about the poor. But he’s lost me with this one. He and his self-righteous, preening acolytes in the Catholic Action League have staggered so far from reason and logic that it is hard to take any of them seriously anymore.

Nodin

Bobby42 wrote: »

So the Oireachtas hearings are meant to only hear from medical and legal experts, no pro life or pro choice groups, just experts.

But they've made an exception for an anti abortion group, women hurt, a group of women who regret having an abortion, who will get to brief oireachtas members.

Some nice balance there.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0514/392255-abortion-oireachtas-committee/

Nice pic with the RTE article, silhouette of a woman looking all regretful/shunned.

Indeed
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/05/15/selective-hearing/?fb_source=pubv1

GCU Flexible Demeanour

O’Malley accused Kenny of "aggressively promoting abortion legislation,"

Irish-Americans. They really haven't a Jaysus clue about their ancestoral homeland.

Women in Ireland have died because there is no exception to the law. Most recently, it was a 31-year-old woman named Savita Halappanavar, a native of India who was working as a dentist in Ireland while her husband worked in Galway for the Natick-based firm Boston Scientific. When her husband learned the 17-week-old fetus his wife was carrying was nonviable, he begged the doctors to terminate the pregnancy to save his wife. The doctors pointed at the law, threw up their hands, and said there was nothing they could do.When Praveen Halappanavar expressed exasperation that no one was lifting a finger to save his dying wife, someone tried to explain it by saying, "This is a Catholic country." An inquest last year found that Savita Halappanavar would most likely still be alive if the law in Ireland allowed for an abortion in that circumstance.

This is bullsh*t, surely? In the Frankfurt sense - i.e. the statement include some facts that correspond with reality (and some fabrications) but, taken together, the account is completely misleading.

The proposed legislation would have no practical impact on the Savita Halappanavar case and, as we know, the inquest finding was "medical misadventure". Plus we actually don't really have cases where the law (as in, what the Constitution provides) can be identified as causing a death. What we have is a situation where legal uncertainty is such that medical practioners require greater certainty of their right to act, to ensure risks to life can actually be addressed before they become critical.

Wonder if he's ever kissed the Blarney Stone on Ballybunion Strand

Bannasidhe

Can we force JW to read this? At gun point if necessary.
Not in order to try and change his mind (inconceivable!) but to show him how to write...

For example this passage of lovely, simple prose ' self-righteous, preening acolytes in the Catholic Action League have staggered so far from reason and logic that it is hard to take any of them seriously anymore.'

Personally I think the likes of CAL have never had more than a passing acquaintanceship with reason and logic - how can one when one's whole belief system is based on a book that contradicts itself constantly. In order to perform the mental gymnastics required to have absolute faith one has to either abandon reason and logic completely or get very very good at compartmentalising. But then I do spend an awful lot of time reading pronouncements from religious folks issued over the last 1000 years or so that are so convoluted and just '' that logic is the last thing I expect. I usually expect a brainache.

I think the difference now is more and more people are examining the pronouncements from religious spokesperson (who am I kidding with my PC 'spokesperson' - it's spokesmen) and seeing them for the emperors new clothes syndrome it is.

Therefore I think we should applaud and disseminate each new pronouncement far and wide - let the people read the BS and then compare it with what they see happening around them I say!

Catholic Ireland may be seriously injured but it ain't dead yet - let us help them dig their own grave.

marienbad

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Irish-Americans. They really haven't a Jaysus clue about their ancestoral homeland. This is bullsh*t, surely? In the Frankfurt sense - i.e. the statement include some facts that correspond with reality (and some fabrications) but, taken together, the account is completely misleading.

The proposed legislation would have no practical impact on the Savita Halappanavar case and, as we know, the inquest finding was "medical misadventure". Plus we actually don't really have cases where the law (as in, what the Constitution provides) can be identified as causing a death. What we have is a situation where legal uncertainty is such that medical practioners require greater certainty of their right to act, to ensure risks to life can actually be addressed before they become critical.

Wonder if he's ever kissed the Blarney Stone on Ballybunion Strand

I have reviewed this post on the Frankfurt meter and it is deemed to be bull****

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Therefore I think we should applaud and disseminate each new pronouncement far and wide - let the people read the BS and then compare it with what they see happening around them I say!

Indeed, they will eat themselves.Unfortunately, the impact will be lessened if each of their pronouncements is surrounded by hyperbole. The facts are such that we don't need to overstate them. (And I'm not saying you are overstating them - that comment is about the Boston Globe article.)

marienbad wrote: »

I have reviewed this post on the Frankfurt meter and it is deemed to be bull****

Good girl, you're taking your first steps in critical analysis. Don't worry that you haven't got the hang of it on your first attempt. Persist, and don't be afraid when you start seeing things differently.

robindch

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

[...] Good girl [...]

GCU - none of that please.

28064212

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

This is bullsh*t, surely? In the Frankfurt sense - i.e. the statement include some facts that correspond with reality (and some fabrications) but, taken together, the account is completely misleading.

I don't see how. The article is about Ireland's abortion stance as a whole, not specifically the upcoming legislation. The point he made in that paragraph was that if Ireland had an exception for non-viable foetuses, Savita would not have died.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

28064212 wrote: »

I don't see how. The article is about Ireland's abortion stance as a whole, not specifically the upcoming legislation. The point he made in that paragraph was that if Ireland had an exception for non-viable foetuses, Savita would not have died.

Mmmm. I think you need to look again at the article

Enda Kenny, as the duly elected prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, has a duty to respond to court decisions ordering his government to find an exception to ­Ireland’s strict prohibition against abortion so that doctors and other health care workers can take steps to save the life of a ­woman in a troubled pregnancy.

Women in Ireland have died because there is no exception to the law.

As I said, the article is bullsh*t (i.e. hyperbolic and misleading rather than plain lying). But I think the very clear impression he's creating is that Enda Kenny is working on a law that will allow exceptions that don't currently exist, to enable interventions to save a woman's life, with the very clear suggestion that this is not permitted at present. We know that's simply false.

A correct account would say something like "the law proposed would not even allow for the termination of a non-viable pregnancy, such as might have changed the outcome in a recent case. Currently, the only exception allowed to doctors is to intervene where there is a real and substantial risk to life".

Can I suggest, the article is very clearly not saying anything like that at all.

28064212

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Mmmm. I think you need to look again at the article

As I said, the article is bullsh*t (i.e. hyperbolic and misleading rather than plain lying). But I think the very clear impression he's creating is that Enda Kenny is working on a law that will allow exceptions that don't currently exist, to enable interventions to save a woman's life, with the very clear suggestion that this is not permitted at present. We know that's simply false.

I disagree. At worst, it is ambiguous.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

28064212 wrote: »

I disagree. At worst, it is ambiguous.

Grand so far as it goes, but I think "ambiguity" is a massive understatement. And the statement "Women in Ireland have died because there is no exception to the law" is clearly wrong, both because there is a (profoundly limited) exception and because there actually doesn't seem to be any case where a woman was let die because of the 8th Amendment.

There's other bits of the article that are similarly hard to account for. You'd expect the Boston Globe to have some awareness of the concept of balance of powers. Yet, they seem to be of the opinion that the Courts can instruct the legislature to pass legislation. (The Courts can certainly say "that's what the Constitution says" and even "we think the Oireachtas should legislate on this point". They can't say "Enda Kenny must initiate legislation by next Tuesday that says the following".)

StudentDad

Given the history of church interference in matters of the State in Ireland this 'crisis' for want of another word, really is a litmus test.

Yes the proposed legislation does not go far enough in my opinion but that is due to the constraints of the Constitution and the interpretation of the Supreme court etc.

If legislators allow their religious beliefs to override their duty to legislate impartially, it would in my view reflect poorly on the State as a whole.

I'd like to think that the silo mentality that has framed Irish social policy since the foundation of the State has diminished.

The law ought to allow individuals choose their own doom. Be that euthanasia, abortion etc. It is not for the State or any church to dictate to any citizen what the 'correct' moral view ought to be. Especially in matters that are wholly private and in no way impact on anyone outside of the private sphere.

If we continue to allow private multinational organisations such as the RC church to dictate social policy, to my mind it undermines the State itself.

SD

Galvasean

Sarky wrote: »

An impressive amount of people using the #prolife hashtag on Twitter today to express their glee at Gosnell getting the death penalty, without a trace of irony. What the f*ck is wrong with those people?

I read in the Indo today that some FG TD recieved a bunch of death threats from prolifers, including one that claimed it would burn down her house while her children were inside.
#irony

Obliq

Morag wrote: »

Oh that's got me cross, soo cross, I am going to email Jerry in the morning.

Morag, got this back from Jerry:

Dear ...........,

Thank you for your email.

I would like to clarify the group to you refer have not been invited to the Oireachtas committee on health and children.

The committee has arranged three days of hearings on the Protection of Life Pregnancy Bill, taking place on Friday 17, Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 May. These hearings will hear from medical and legal experts as well as regulatory bodies and the Department of Health. Every effort has been made to ensure that the hearings are balanced.

I hope that I have allayed your concerns.

Again, many thanks for your email.

Regards,
Jerry

Jerry Buttimer T.D.

Cork South Central Constituency

I had asked about "Women Hurt" and included the link to RTE news that had "Women Hurt" as being invited. Perhaps they've changed their minds?