It was in the early 1980s that the pro-life people approached Fianna Fáil asking that they promise an amendment to the Constitution to protect the life of the unborn baby.
Charlie Haughey
easily agreed and had a text drawn up: “The State acknowledges the
right to life of the unborn and, guarantees in its laws to respect, and,
as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
Not to be outdone, Garret FitzGerald soon promised
the same. After a lecture in Glenstal by Catherine McGuinness the
following phrase was added, “with due regard to the equal right to life
of the mother”.
Henry McAdoo, then Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin, said that this was satisfactory and adequate. However Victor Griffin, dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, intervened in the opposite sense.
This was unnecessary and broke the interchurch consensus.
In 1982 Garret FitzGerald became taoiseach and received advice from Peter Sutherland,
his attorney general, that the text was ambiguous and dangerous.
Haughey decided to stick with the text, “for base political reasons”,
according to Dick Spring, the then tánaiste.
FitzGerald, however, had an alternative text drawn
up: “Nothing in this Constitution shall be invoked to invalidate, or to
deprive of force or effect, any provision of a law on the ground that it
prohibits abortion.”
This would have had the effect of leaving abortion
law subject to legislation in the Dáil and outside the scope of the
Constitution.
In a highly unusual fashion Archbishop Dermot Ryan
of Dublin intervened and got the other bishops to endorse the Fianna
Fáil text. This was decisive in returning 67 per cent majority in favour
of the Fianna Fáil text.
FitzGerald highlighted the two exceptions allowed by the Catholic Church: ectopic pregnancy and cancer of the womb. The official Roman Catholic
view is that they are not exceptions; rather in those cases there was a
double effect and the inevitable abortion was not directly intended.
FitzGerald referred to those as two exceptions
allowed by the Catholic church, saying that other exceptions were
allowed by other churches.
Denounce
Thus FitzGerald adhered to the Catholic position even
while criticising it. This made sure Kevin McNamara, archbishop of
Dublin by this time, could not denounce him.
Just before the referendum FitzGerald addressed the
nation on television, saying that it was the most difficult speech he
had ever given; he was recommending a No vote despite having earlier
recommended Yes to the other text.
For the few short years of his remaining life,
Archbishop Ryan consistently opposed the taoiseach. A priest in the
Dublin curia said to me that he was like a dog defending his territory.
Some years after the referendum was signed into law, Declan Costello
in the High Court gave an order based on the text: a 14-year-old girl
was not allowed to travel abroad for an abortion. The rest is well-known
history.
The Supreme Court
allowed the girl to travel, saying that the threat of suicide was
adequate reason. Since then there have been four referendums on the
issue.
It all goes to show that legislation would have been a more appropriate path as circumstances change so easily.
In France
in1975, abortion was made legal after 12 weeks if two doctors were to
testify that the patient’s health is endangered or there is a high
likelihood that the foetus is handicapped by a non-curable serious
illness.
Too liberal
It soon became evident that this was too liberal, so
in 1994 multidisciplinary diagnostic centres were set up to decide which
birth defects are severe enough to make abortion legal.
If we passed a similar law making abortion illegal
here from the beginning but with those French exceptions, then that
would adequately protect the right to life of the unborn child and that
of its mother while allowing termination for the distressing case of the
deformed foetus.
Then we could run a referendum to “repeal the
Eighth”.
It would be a tribute to the legacy of Garret FitzGerald.
Many
churchmen chose Charlie over the saintly Garret, rather as some people
long ago chose Barabbas.