Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 49
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Fuck Spuc
[Read the article: Irish teen takes abortion case to Supreme Court]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was a great lapel pin.
SPUC is a really aggressive and nasty organisation -- it is though laughably incompetent. In the 1980s it sponsored an amendment to the constitution intended to prohibit abortion. Its argument was that there was a risk of a Roe v. Wade type decision in Ireland.
The then pretty liberal government proposed an amendment that said: "nothing in this constitution shall be held to invalidate a law that prohibit abortion."
not good enough for SPUC -- it insisted on:
"This constitution recognises the right to life of the unborn with due and equal regard to the right to life of the mother."
Now this is a legal nonsense -- you cannot have equality of rights -- it is pratically and legally impossible -- one right must have primacy in law.
What was SPUC up to. Well SPUC is not just Catholic, it is pre-Vatican II Catholic. Prior to Vatican II, the Catholic church rule was that when a woman was pregnant, one could not choose a course of treatment to save her life that jeapordised the feutus and vice versa (earlier still the rule was save the unbaptised child, for bapsism to save it soul.) SPUC basically wanted an amendment that matched the pre-Vatican II position.
However, thinsg became grimly comic when the amendment (not drafted in Ireland as far as anyone can tell) had to be translated to Irish. The issue is that where there is confusion, the Irish language text of the Constitution and laws is controlling. The problem was how to translate "the unborn." This was done as far as anyone can tell with a dictionary and came out as "na beo gan beath" or 'the living unquickened.' What this means is a bit of a mystery m-- some people pointed out that the constitution seemed to guarantee the right to life of Zombies.
In any event, the result of the illiterate amendment advanced by SPUC was to be completely bizarre -- the language was so vague that is allowed a Supreme Court (admittedly playing pretty fast and loose with the Constitution) to rule that a raped girl could have an abortion. The Chief Justice notably based his opinion on the Constitution's preamble "With Charity and Justice to All" ruling Charity meant that X got an abortion.
In any event, the legality of abortion in Ireland is a messy situation -- it is legal in some circumstances. Indeed I was under the impression (but I am open to correction) that it is legal in cases of anencephaly (basically no brain) on the basis that the fetus is not a child; for some reason I understood the Catholic church position in cases of anencephaly to be similarly flexible. However, SPUC are waaaaaay more extreme than even the Catholic Church.
One last point -- if a woman I knew was getting an abortion in the US, I would advise her to "pay cash and use a false name." This is not because I think it is right that she should have to do so, but I'm pretty sure it is wise given the vindictiveness and nastyness of the anti-abortion loby. Ireland is a small and gossipy place -- if she was my friend, daughter or sister, I would similarly suggest a trip to London.