Martin wades into abortion debate

As the Dáil committee hearings continue on the abortion bill, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has waded into the debate saying it is important that Christian believers “be, and seen to be, on the side of life, especially when life is most vulnerable”.

Archbishop Martin warned in his Pentecostal sermon that “the Christian believer is on the side of the life of the mother and that of the unborn child, life at its very beginnings and life at its end”.

He also urged doctors and nurses to ensure their “great tradition” of protecting the lives of mothers and their unborn children survives.

“We thank God for those who work within our healthcare system and who give constant witness, even in difficult circumstances, to ensuring that both mother and baby survive and flourish. This is a great tradition of which we can be proud and which we must see to it that it survives and is not weakened,” he said.

In a sermon that referred to the importance of community and unity over individualism, he warned of the dangerous consequences “when an economic system or a political programme moves away from serving the common good.....when we almost feel that we can act as God”.

“We live in a world in which for many individualism, self-expression and self-sufficiency become the sole driving force of human activity........ Growth, progress, economic interest and profit are pursued for their own sake, without any regard for the consequences for other areas of life, whether on the poor and excluded, or the environment, or on the global good of inclusion,” he said.

“A world view based only on human ambition inevitably leads to divisions and confusion. In our recent past, an economic system became infested with personal greed and uncontrolled ambition — and it was even trumpeted — only then to collapse like a pack of cards and create new divisions. We see the divisions of poverty and precariousness, lack of hopeful employment for our young people, of emigration, of our inability to maintain important services of solidarity.” he said.

Last week Archbishop Martin, in a letter to a newspaper, criticised the “growing impression” that the judgment in the X case “is the Constitution”.

“I believe that it is an interpretation given in a specific case which does not supersede or relativise the clear, constitutional right to equal protection for unborn life in the circumstances which I have outlined. Indeed it would give the life of such an unborn child less protection than is guaranteed,” the archbishop said in his letter to The Irish Times.

The archbishop also said he felt anxiety in relation to instances where an unborn child is viable yet doctors consider an abortion to save the mother’s life.