It's Time to Legislate on X

Abortion has always been a polarising topic in Irish public life, but unless you've been living under a rock the past few weeks, it's been thrust back into the limelight after the tragic death of 31 year old Savita Halappanavar, a Dentist living in Galway. Savita presented herself in A&E at Galway University Hospital complaining of back pain but was found to be miscarrying after being 17 weeks pregnant. Spending 3 days in agony she requested an abortion multiple times but was denied as the foetus still had a heartbeat. After the foetus was finally induced, Savita developed septicaemia and was dead within a week.

20 Years ago the Supreme Court ruled that abortion is permissible when there is a substantial risk to the life of the mother after the Attorney General issued an injunction to prohibit a suicidal raped teenager travelling to the UK to access an abortion. This teenager known as "Girl X" is now older than Savita, and that Supreme Court ruling has never been legislated upon. No government has had the moral or ethical courage to legislate on that Supreme Court ruling, which frankly does not go far enough. Doctors are unable to perform their duty of care to the patient, as they could not act within the scope of the law as there was no immediate threat to Savita's life, however there was a real threat to her health. Savita's cervix was dilated during her 3 day agonising miscarriage leaving her prone to infection. Under Ireland's archaic laws on abortion, the right to life of the unborn undermined the right to life, and bodily integrity of the mother.

#savita Stop using savita to push an abortion agenda. UCHG staff says she died from a pre-exisiting condition. #showsomerespect
— Harlice Surel (@HarliceSurel) November 26, 2012

Even the anti-choice movement are jumping on this latest case to spread lies and mis-information. Savita's husband Praveen contacted Galway Pro-Choice seeking advice on going public with this case, and to campaign on legislation for X. The campaign to date has been respectful and dignified in comparison to the inflammatory hysteria peddled by pro-lifers we've become so accustomed to in recent years.

The swift slippery slope to abortion-on-demand in Britain should be forefront in the Irish debate on legislating for the disastrous X ruling
— Richard Waghorne (@richardwaghorne) November 22, 2012

Even the old chestnut of Abortion on Demand is getting thrown around, personally I see nothing wrong with that. We had a miscarrying woman in agony demanding an abortion which was denied. A pregnant cancer patient demanded an abortion which was denied and had to travel to the UK as her life was deemed not to be in immediate danger. Due to problems having her passport renewed, her cancer treatment was delayed. Do not be fooled, anti-choice rhetoric muddies the water and derails the argument, which is what they want.

I have my reservations with surgical abortion, but upon reflection I may feel the same way about any high-intervention treatment. In a lot of cases, a medical abortion might be the best option for many Irish women if legislators allowed for it, where a GP can prescribe medication to terminate a foetus up to 10 weeks. It would certainly prevent women from ordering dodgy pills online, having to travel to the UK, or worse still - back alley coat-hanger abortions, ensuring the safety of Irish women.

Irish women who require a termination have their human rights violated. They are denied, what can often be a necessary treatment in their own country; making them unequal before the law, violates right to life and bodily integrity. In 2012 we should no longer be arguing about this in Ireland, and making urgent demands on the government to finally update and legislate upon a 20 year old Supreme Court Ruling.

I'm a Republican, that's why I'm not a Republican

I've always found the notion of republicanism troubling. Last year when Elizabeth and Philip Coburg-Saxe-Gothe (commonly known as Windsor) visited Ireland a lot of republicans caused civil unrest and made unreasonable demands to have the royal visitors return the 6 counties to the Irish Nation. Such a bizarre demand as it's not within their mandate in the British establishment to return any colony under the current democratic process that exists in the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland.

Any Republican worth his or her salt would know that after the Good Friday Agreement the provision that the country of Ireland was the entire island was removed via popular vote.  It seems that republicans in this day and age do not respect the diplomatic will of the people.

In fact nowhere in the Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, is the word "Republic" used.  The preamble reads more like a prayer:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

You would be forgiven for thinking that that after Ireland achieves Independence from one empire, capitulates to another. I often think of the Irish constitution as being plagiarism of the US constitution by a catholic fundamentalist with Archbishop McQuaid looking over his shoulder.

Watching the US presidential debates, the so called Republicans cry fix when their candidate loses a debate, the republicans represent the conservative mindset. The Democrats represent those more liberally inclined.  Both republican and democrat mean the same thing! The choice of the people is to be respected, but US politics has descended into madness since the time of the founding-fathers of the United States. A bi-partisan system is not a republican idea, nor is it a democratic idea, it has a hint of the stench of totalitarianism - different arse, same smell.

Under the classical Greek idea of a republic, Justice puts the person at the centre and it's the responsibility of the people to determine for themselves how the rule of law should be applied. All citizens are responsible for the own happiness and the happiness of others to create a flourishing and pluralistic society where no person is excluded based on colour, background, gender, sexuality or belief. But to capitulate to a value system coming from a land-locked state with the City Centre of Rome, that values righteousness over justice is a huge mistake. Under a tyranny of righteousness there is only black and white, there are no grey areas and many miscarriages of justice can happen under such a system.  Thou shalt not .... but what if you have no choice to do so to prevent harm coming to yourself or another. I shalt not steal a weapon, knowing the owner has the intention to bring harm to me, another or an animal? I shalt not kill president Palin, in Bruce Willis style just about as she's going to press the button? I shalt not covet? really? in a capitalist free market economy? I think that injunction from the top 10 is redundant, the high-value goods my neighbour possesses are an Android smartphone and a PlayStation 3 - I'm happy with my iPhone and Xbox 360 thanks.

Theft will occur, those who steal do it out of desperation as they need to feed ..... Ah, here's the grey area - their family, or their drug habit. One motivation to do wrong may be honourable, and perhaps the other motivation deserves punishment for the sake of society so it can flourish.

Only under a secular pluralist system where all citizens are entitled to the right to self determination and have their own freedoms can a society flourish without a majestira telling them what is verboten. No matter where you live in the world, the word "Republican" needs to be reclaimed, so all people are equal, even the leaders, without the high status of politicians, priests, popes and princes.

Why bother being famous in Ireland?

I often don't see the appeal of fame, especially being Irish.  We Irish are notorious for being a nation of begrudges, in fact we even begrudge ourselves for our only superlative of being the most begrudging nation.  But perhaps our cynicism, when it comes to famous people, is well founded.  When you observe the great Irish institutions such as government, RTE and the GAA, what can be seen is a wall-to-wall cesspit of talentless narcissistic windbags.

However not all are that bad, sometimes a simpleton makes it big in the Irish celeb culture, one such cretin is Dáithí Ó Sé, I remember Ó Sé being on TV a few years ago whining that the Irish language isn't modern enough, and there are no Irish words for sex toys.  At one point he suggests a word for dildo; bod bréagach (lit. false penis).  Despite his best intentions, what our hapless cretin failed to realise was that there is already a word in the Irish language for dildo which we are happy with, that word is Dáithí Ó Sé.

We are however fortunate this summer, Ryan Turbridy got himself a summer job with the BBC, hopefully the Brits will fall in love with him before they realise the reason why we were so disillusioned with him as soon as he made the move to TV.

But our TV often takes bizzare format with even more crap prizes for the "lucky winner".  Once upon a summer, Marty Whelan presented a lottery gameshow called "Come fly with Marty", where the jackpot was a holiday...... with the presenter and his wife.  Sometimes I don't know what these producers are smoking to think such pulp would be a worthwhile distraction from the mundanity of everyday life of a licence payer.  Whelan was later replaced by a serial granny molester called Derek Mooney, though they still do occasionally exchange slots as I'm led to believe.

We Irish are often percieved to being good craic and having the gift of the gab, but it's evident with the state of our economy, currently and historically, our best and brightest have left these shores to find greener pastures.

I could go on all day about more, the likes of Amanda Brunker, Jedward, Fair City, Fade Street  but I'd rather have a nice cup of tea than switch on the tele and drink the Kool-Aid.

Norris withdraws from the Áras

I was quite disappointed to learn that David Norris has quit the Irish presidential race, to be honest he was leagues ahead to the competition.  Given his personal life, there are those who would, and have done, strongly oppose his campaign purely based on what he gets up to in the privacy of his own home/car/park-bench with another consenting adult. 
The anti-Norris campaign page can be read here.

It was obvious from the outset that there would be fascists out there out to character-assassinate Norris, and are claiming victory as I write this. Although it must be said, this scandal is only significant of a certain few people.

Though the pederasty of a former partner might dent a high-profile political campaign, Norris got involved by writing to the Israeli authorities begging leniency, which in my view was stupid anyway.  Ignoring the nature of the crime, Norris undermined the Irish diplomatic corps, on his own accord interfered with criminal proceedings in another sovereign territory.  There is no code of practice or indeed legislation preventing elected representatives from using their status overseas, something I do think should be the sole job of the department of foreign affairs.
 

But Norris is not the only Gay presidential candidate to have done such a thing, in 2004 Mitchell called Florida governor, Jeb Bush (yes, Jeb is Dubya's baby brother) pleading against the death sentence of Paul Hill.  The "Pro-Life" campaigner, Hill, shot and killed a man, purely because the victim was a doctor who performed abortions.  Human Rights campaigners oppose the death penalty the world over, but when persons of some status get involved they seem to support the individual more than they oppose the death penalty.

US presidential elections almost always get nasty, which makes them way more entertaining, and exposes the candidates for what they are; petty little children who shouldn't even be let use a scissors unsupervised, let along lead the free world.