Last month, the government pledged to consider a ‘significant liberalisation’ of Ireland’s incredibly restrictive laws on abortion at the behest of 18 fellow United Nations member states.
It doesn’t take much to see that this pledge doesn’t marry well with the special position Eamon de Valera and Fr. John Charles McQuaid afforded the Catholic church in our history, our psyche and most importantly – our Constitution.
If our government makes good on this pledge then it won’t be much longer before changes to abortion legislation in Ireland rise towards the top of the national agenda – something more likely than not to end in a referendum ten billion times messier than the feel-good landslide last year’s Marriage Referendum turned out to be.
No, you have to go back a bit further to find a historical parallel for the division in society between those who are pro-choice and those who are not pro-choice.
The depth of the fissure between people who do and do not believe Irish women should be entitled to safe, legal access to abortion is closer to the intensity of the split that occurred when Michael Collins signed away six counties in Ulster almost a century ago.
No matter what side of the fence you find yourself falling into, you better get ready for an uncomfortable few weeks, months and years of vicious arguing the toss – because the introduction of new abortion legislation is set to be the Hagler vs Hearns of modern Irish politics.
Melissa Ohden on Newstalk
Case in point: this morning, veteran broadcaster Pat Kenny welcomed his guest, the American anti-abortion activist Melissa Ohden onto his Newstalk show. Besides Kenny, the impartial host of the show, there was nobody there to contradict nor correct Ohden no matter what she said on whether or not Irish women should have access to abortions.
Ohden, a survivor of a late term abortion herself, spoke to Kenny about her story – a truly moving one about a baby who went on to survive an abortion attempt during the third trimester.
She also described her experience with archaic methods of abortion that would not be introduced in Ireland were the eighth amendment of our constitution repealed – such as the submerging of live foetuses in formaldehyde.
Kenny made no attempt to challenge Ohden on her representation of abortion. After all, Ohden was there to tell her story and her story is, of course, valid. Her opinions are, of course, valid.
Similarly valid is the story of Helen Linehan – who told Ray D’Arcy of her decision to travel to the UK in order to terminate her pregnancy with a foetus that had a fatal foetal abnormality. The only difference is just a few weeks ago the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland ruled that there should have been somebody on the show, sat next to Helen Linehan, to tell her that she was wrong for terminating her foetus – a law-breaker for minimising her own heartbreak and sparing her foetus an agonisingly sad and short life, all in the name of ‘balance’.
Balance
Ohden’s unchecked rhetoric reached a cacophonous climax when she said that, “if you do some research and talk to some women, what you often hear from them is that women find their abortion procedure far more traumatic than the rape itself.”
A man should feel uncomfortable responding to this claim. I cannot speak for women on what it is like to be raped. I cannot speak for women on what it is like to terminate a pregnancy. What I do know, though, is that the claim that women find abortions to be more traumatic than the rape which precedes it them is not a claim that should be allowed to go unscrutinised before a listenership of thousands.
In response to this claim, Pat Kenny said nothing at all.
"Women who have been sexually assaulted find the abortion process far more traumatic than the rape itself" Melissa Ohden tells #pknt
— Pat Kenny Newstalk (@PatKennyNT) June 7, 2016
Instead, he proceeded to read out messages into the show from listeners who disdain the eighth amendment and those who want it protected, alike. Somewhat ironically, he remarked that “there is a very lively debate in this country on both sides of the argument.”
The intensity of feeling on both sides is crucial for listeners to bear in mind when radio shows choose to bombard us at length with one side of the argument. An extreme side of the argument. For every Melissa Ohden there is more than one pregnant teenage rape victim, crying in her mother’s arms, knowing full well that her family will have to go without in order to finance a ferry to UK – and that’s not even the worst case scenario.
For every Melissa Ohden, there is a Helen Linehan – our broadcasters cannot fail us by letting us forget that.
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