• Ireland Contraceptive Politics
Ronan Fanning
It is now quite lawful," wrote H. L. Mencken half a century ago, "for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to Physics and chemistry." Such until now has been the basic principle underlying existing legislation in the Irish Republic on contraception, and no Irish government has deemed it necessary or desirable to attempt to alter that state of affairs — until this week, that is, when the government introduced its new measure, the Control of Importation Sale and Manufacture of Contraceptives Bill, 1974. The new legislation has its origins not in any liberal zeal on the part of the government so much as in a recent decision of the Irish Supreme Court which, by a four to one ,cl.ecision, declared unconstitutional that sec on of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935, which prohibited the importation of contraceptives from outside the state. The COurt's decision was based upon the right to Privacy of married couples alone, and took no account of any more general right to privacy °r of any right of individuals to decide on their own account whether or not they wished to.use contraceptives. This principle of marital Privacy is fundamental to an understanding of the terms of the new Bill which sets out to fill gap left by the Supreme Court's decision. ,Lne government, in short, had acted not
oecause it wanted to but because it felt it had to.
It is only with these considerations in mind that any one not wholly familiar with the lntricicies of the Irish Senate on contraception can begin to understand the reasons for some of the more extraordinary, not to say farcical, Provisions of the new Bill. It provides that no One may sell, offer for sale or invite offers to riurchase contraceptives unless he holds a cence to do so from the Minister for Justice it is, incidentally, symptomatic of Irish attitudes to contraception that it should be thought wholly unremarkable that the Ineasure in question should be the responsibility of the Minister for Justice, and not of the Minister for Health. Such licence will or'!inarily be granted only to the owners of Icensed chemists' shops, although special Provision is made for married couples living in tniote or isolated areas to import their own Contraceptives privately, under ministerial ficence, "subject to such conditions (including conditions as to quantity) as may be so sPe, cified" by the minister. Those who con`ravene these provisions are liable to a fine of hundred pounds and/or six months 4riprisonment on summary conviction and to a fine of £500 and/or one year's imprisonment P° conviction or indictment. The manufacturer of contraceptives, too, will be licensed and similar penalties may be imposed. Rut the provision which has exposed the government to most ribaldry and abuse is that nich prohibits the purchase of contracep"yes by unmarried persons — persons, for the Purposes of the Act who have "no living 'Pouse." Just how, or whether, the governrn,ent intends to enforce this prohibition is not clear. Whether any would-be purchaser of contraceptives will be required to produce his rinarriage certificate or his living spouse, or ,uuth, for the inspection of the chemist before „7taining the goods he requires is at once the most obvious and the least Rabelaisian of the tInestions this provision has provoked.
The other important feature of the Bill is the distinction it draws between contraceptives and abortifacients, the manufacture, importation of sale of the latter being absolutely prohibited under pain of a fine of £1,000 and /or two years imprisonment. This distinction is designed not merely to avoid flouting Catholic beliefs on abortion, but, more subtly to persuade the government's more aggressively Catholic supporters in Parliament to support the Bill.
Such hopes now seem doomed. Leading members of Fine Gael — the senior party in the coalition government — have already publicly opposed the Bill because as one of them said, "An evil tree cannot grow good fruit" and "legislators with deep religious convictions just could not go into the division lobby and vote for legislation that would liberalise contraception." Our reluctance to impose the whip in a matter of personal conscience has caused both government parties (Labour and Fine Gael) to allow, most unusually, a free vote. Alternatively, more cynical observers have suggested, the Cabinet feared that their Bill would have been defeated even had they whipped in their supporters; such a defeat — as distinct from a free vote — could have been interpreted as a vote of no confidence which might have led to a general election and, possibly, to the government's defeat. Some substance has been lent to this suggestion by the government's simultaneous decision to curtail by guillotine the debate on the Constituencies Bill currently before the Dail, the passage of which would greatly enhance their prospects of electoral success. Still more hardened cynics have argued that religious antipathy within the Cabinet itself to any change on contraception laws has caused the government to hope, perhaps even to pray, for the defeat of its own Bill.
This now seems the most likely outcome. The opposition, Fianna Fail, are rejoicing in the government's discomfiture. Although there is no evidence that their religious susceptibilities are any less pronounced than the government's, they at least enjoy the advantage that religious conviction seems more likely to coin-; cide with party interest. The religious convictions of northern Protestants appear as irrelevant to them as to the government.. Moreover Fianna Fail members who favour more progressive contraception laws either on principle or because they represent urban and more radical (as opposed to rural and more conservative) constituents may safely do so on the grounds that the Bill is almost universally acknowledged to be a rank bad piece of legislation. "If a Bill such as this is necessary," their front bench spokesman has observed, "It is the government's duty to see that it is passed. I don't think it is Fine Gael's duty toi their job for them." Nor do Fianna Fail ordinarily allow a free vote on such occasions. Only this week a private member's and more liberal Bill on contraception introduced in the Senate was defeated there by a three to one majority when Fianna Fail voted solidly against and the other parties split.
Under these circumstances, then, it is hardly surprising that the Bill's second reading has been postponed probably until after Easter and perhaps much longer. In the meantime such organisations as 'Save Our Society,' The Knights of Saint Columbus' (an old and powerful organisation of Catholic laymen who have announced that no change in Irish civil law can "alter the moral situation of contraception, which remains contrary to the law of God and of His Church") and the 'Irish League of Decency' (the inspiration of a sixty-seven year old Dublin corporation building inspector) hold the centre of the field. The Liberals, on the other hand, are in total disarray. They feel betrayed by the year-old 'coalition government to whom they had looked in vain for a brave new world, and they have been reduced to sitting in pubs swapping coarse witticisms about the Bill while plaintively repeating between times William Butler Yeats's celebrated denunciation of the Irish people — "You have disgraced yourselves again."
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