There was no concern for Savita, just usual self-satisfied public ire
The links between Halappanavar’s death and the X case were negligible. Proposing action on one as the answer to the other was perverse. A rereading of much of what passed for debate in the days and weeks after Savita’s — probably avoidable — death is a study in the self-satisfaction some glean from screaming blue murder. It is not just the stupidity and incoherence, which characterises all anger, that stands out so clearly now. It is the feral nature of the crowd, which, for more than 30 years, has set the tone, so disastrously, and with such ill-consequence, for Irish women.
One woman suffering those consequences is a young immigrant, who told her doctors that she became pregnant after rape. She was forced to give birth by caesarean section to a child she did not want to carry. The €1,500 cost of travelling to Britain for an abortion was beyond her. She has little English and no money. This has not happened in a mother-and-baby home in the 1920s. There were no nuns involved. It is Ireland, 2014.
In recent days, as the full consequences of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 have become clear, the condemnation of its provisions has focused on the government that enacted it. What has escaped examination is the hysteria of the herd that created the crux, that colluded in that fundamentally wrong choice. As ever, we got the government we deserved. The legislation to finally provide for the X case was a wrong-headed and mistaken reaction to Halappanavar’s death. If anything, it has made the situation worse for women whose health, not to speak of their lives, is at risk during pregnancy.
The combination of opportunism and cowardice that characterised the Government’s legislation last year was a multifaceted, intra-party and governmental response to a public mood that was as disjointed as it was momentarily out of control. The Labour Party, under increasing electoral pressure — which has worsened — staked a claim on delivering something, anything, by way of a remedy.
Fine Gael broke its promise to the electorate, and agreed with Labour on the principle of some action, any action, to defuse public anger. In the cauldron of politics under pressure, besieged by a public reaction of mass insensibility, the circumstances that led to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 were horribly reminiscent of the Frankenstein genesis of the Eight Amendment to the Constitution in 1982-83.
That amendment was passed overwhelmingly by a two-thirds majority, resulting in Article 43.3.3. It prescribes that: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
This is the root cause of the problem now. It led first to the X case, and then to two successful referenda in 1992, to ensure that the right to travel outside the State, for an abortion and the right to information on abortion services, would not be prohibited, on the grounds of Article 43.3.3. The Supreme Court judgment in the X case, which overturned a previous ruling in the High Court, held that the equal right to life of the mother required that if there was a threat of suicide, her equal right to life effectively equated to a constitutional right to have an abortion.
Another constitutional proposal on the same day in 1992, to remove the threat of suicide as a basis for abortion, was defeated. A further constitutional referendum, in 2002, that would have permitted abortion, where necessary, to prevent loss of life other than by suicide, was defeated again. The fact is that in 1983, 1992, and 2002 we, the people, created and then repeatedly reinforced an utterly unworkable legal framework for the health and care of women at risk during pregnancy. It is a mess of our own making. Shifting the blame now rings hollow. It is hypocrisy.
From the beginning, and regardless of whether you are for or against abortion, dealing with the issue within the Constitution was fundamentally wrong. A crude, ham-fisted amendment was rammed through in 1983 on the back of popular, and insensible uproar.
It was a fundamentalist crusade in revolt against a society, where traditional controls over women had broken down. Contraception had become available. What had been shameful and hidden was being flaunted. That successful pro-life campaign was truly a mass and popular movement. If the object and point of the view of the crowd has changed over the decades, the insensibility of public anger has not. It remains as dangerous. Our politics remain as supine, and the ultimate consequences as appalling. Recurring bouts of public anger have proved to be a foundation for nothing, except passing self-satisfaction and scapegoating.
It is not appropriate that sensitive issues requiring fine judgments in very difficult, and sometimes fast-moving situations, be made on the basis of simplistic constitutional requirements.
The original urge for a pro-life constitutional amendment, and its genetically mutated offspring, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, 2013, are essentially the same. It is about effecting a popularly mandated, but ultimately unworkable degree of control over pregnant women. Any, and every, legal remedy within the existing framework of Article 43.3.3, and the consequent Supreme Court ruling in the X case, are destined to be fundamentally flawed. We took a wrong turn when we intruded into the Constitution with these issues.
A belated awareness that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution needs to be repealed is welcome. But it won’t happen soon. We will have referenda on allowing 16-year-olds the vote and about how old you have to be before you can become President of Ireland. It is truly a stupefying sense of our priorities.
Remembering the uproar, and it was vitriolic, over the death of Savita, and replaying it as more outrage over the mother-and-baby home in Tuam and the mass outbreak of public frenzy (founded on reports that were either untrue or exaggerated, about the discovery of hundreds of infant remains) gives a sense of a sickness at the heart of society. The object of all public uproar is the same. It is about the manufacture of mass self-satisfaction, not solutions. It has no foundation in either charity or concern. That is why we created mother-and-baby homes. That is why we passed the Eighth Amendment.
That is why we revisit what we do in outrage at the consequences of our own actions. Anything is better than calmly, coldly face up to the consequences; and simply stop.
The feral nature of the crowd has set the tone disastrously for Irish women for more than 30 years
