ANOTHER VOICE
The womb of time will bring in its revenges
CHARLES MOORE
You now know the result of the Irish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. As I write, I do not, but, either way, the rather careful statement of the Irish bishops is surely correct. They said that a `yes' vote will mean that `the right to lik of the unborn child in Irish law is uncertain', even though Mr Haughey did manage to stick a protocol on the subject onto the end of the treaty. The complete protection of the foe- tus that the Irish Constitution provides could be undermined by the common citi- zenship of the European Union which Maastricht creates.
If the process continues, the logic is that abortions will be available in every member state. This will be widely seen as a worthy achievement, showing that we are all mod- ern now and have bestowed full rights on women. I wonder how that moral consen- sus will look to future generations.
When we talk about past societies, we tend to be unforgiving of their habits if we do not share them. We find it incompre- hensible and disgusting that free countries like the United States or ancient Athens could have countenanced slavery. Usually the reason for these horrors is that their victims were not considered fully human by the societies in which they lived. They were of Inferior' race or they were infidels or barbarians. Their victim status was less eas- ily challenged in pre- or anti-Christian civil- isations, which had no settled theory about the sacredness of human life.
The reason that abortion is practised and approved in modern society is the same. It is that people believe that foetuses are not human. Almost no pro-abortionists support infanticide, because a baby, they concede, is a person, and, they agree, you should not kill people. But while it is in the womb, or, to be more exact, for the first half of its period in the womb, they think that it is not really human, and so it is all right to kill it if its eventual life will present problems. These problems range from appalling suf- fering for the child itself (because of foetal deformity) to a bit of bother for the moth- er, such as the fact that she was planning to sit exams at the time the birth is expected. The law treats all of them in much the same way: they are almost always permitted as grounds for abortion.
Now this idea that foetuses are not human is virtually impossible to sustain. It rests on little more than the crude idea that you cannot see the creature in question (an idea constantly weakened by technological advance: on the scan, you can see it, and it is recognisably human before it is three months in the womb). The foetus contains in itself the full potential for independent human existence. Pro-abortionists realise this, I think, and so they tend to change the subject. They speak about a woman's con- trol over her body and about the bad social consequences of unwanted children. They are reluctant to say that they are in favour of abortion on the grounds that killing peo- ple, in certain circumstances, is justified, which is odd, because there are very strong arguments for euthanasia. The result of this evasion is that the debate is not a debate, but a screaming match.
Ireland stands out against the prevailing view. Its public doctrine, widely shared by the people, whether or not they think abor- tion should be prohibited by the constitu- tion, is that abortion is wrong because it means the taking of innocent life. This is not a belief derived from obscure religious tradition. Sometimes if you tell people you oppose abortion they say, `Are you a Catholic?' as if you had refused a ham sandwich and they said, `Are you a Jew?', yet the idea that the innocent need protec- tion is not peculiar to Christianity, although it is chiefly inspired by it. Where that public doctrine does not exist, people tend to for- get about it, because it suits their conve- nience to do so. My guess is that most women who have abortions in England probably regard them as unpleasant, but do a shadowy figure who shuns publicity.' not exactly know what the moral objection might be. If that is so, it does not say much for the current state of European civilisa- tion. It means we are killing people rather as white settlers hunted bushmen in South Africa in the 19th century: if we knew what we were doing we would not be doing it.
In Ireland, there is no such blindness. The law stands for the human person, and goes out of its way to protect those persons who cannot protect themselves. At present, this position looks quaint and old-fash- ioned. Will it seem so to posterity? Modern school-children are shown the famous dia- gram of a 19th-century slave ship, with its black bodies crammed together. Perhaps future generations will be invited to inspect the ground plan of one of our abortion clin- ics with a similar horror. And perhaps the few who stood out against those clinics will be honoured. Anyone who questioned the superiority of the Aryan race was scorned by the dominant power in Europe in the early 1940s, and nowadays is admired.
The idea of `Europe' thins out the moral richness of European civilisation. The Maastricht Treaty speaks of `respecting the history, the culture and the traditions' of the peoples of Europe, but this comes down in practice to a sentimental attach- ment to fringes and a readiness to hand over lots of money to remote regions. The history, culture and tradition of Ireland is of a Catholic people upholding the faith against dark age barbarism and British colonial Protestantism. This is threatened by Maastricht. The history, culture and tra- dition of Denmark are of a small kingdom struggling to maintain independence against Germany. This is threatened by Maastricht. The history, culture and tradi- tion of Britain are of a Protestant people ruled by a sovereign parliament and free of Continental entanglements. This is threat- ened by Maastricht. The recent history, cul- ture and tradition of Germany are of a nation recovering self-esteem by financial discipline and economic prowess. Even this is threatened by Maastricht. History, cul- ture and tradition do not mean morris dances or crofting or wearing lederhosen, they mean how countries run themselves, see themselves, what their people believe, trust and love, and what they will die for. Not many pedple would volunteer for the European Community, and I do not see why Irish foetuses should be conscripted into doing so.
Previous page
