Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
THE GOVERNMENTS ARGUMENT THAT ABORTION IS NECESSARY TO TREAT THREATENED SUICIDE IN PREGNANCY WAS DEMOLISHED AT THE RECENT OIREACHTAS HEARINGS ON ABORTION. THE PSYCHIATRISTS WHO ADDRESSED THE HEARINGS WERE UNANIMOUS THAT ABORTION IS NOT A TREATMENT FOR SUICIDAL IDEATION. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER THAT ABORTION REDUCES THE MENTAL HEALTH RISKS OF UNPLANNED PREGNANCY. BUT THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT ABORTION INCREASES THE RISK OF FUTURE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS FOR A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF WOMEN. IF THE GOVERNMENT LEGISLATES FOR ABORTION ON THE BASIS OF THE X CASE, IT WOULD CURE NO WOMAN OF SUICIDAL IDEATION, BUT IT WOULD PUT SOME WOMEN'S LIVES AT RISK. IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT PROTECTING THE LIVES OF WOMEN AND BABIES IN PREGNANCY, WE CANNOT INTRODUCE A LAW THAT DIRECTLY TARGETS THE LIFE OF THE UNBORN CHILD AND PUTS WOMENS LIVES AT RISK.
02
03
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
Lord David Steel, the architect of the 1967 law that brought wide-ranging abortion into Britain recently said it would be a mistake for Ireland to introduce abortion on the ground of threatened suicide, adding he never envisaged there would be so many abortions in Britain resulting from the law he introduced.5 British abortion statistics have a truly chilling lesson to teach us in Ireland, a lesson that should give us pause before we follow their example. In 2011, a staggering 97% of the 189,931 abortions in England and Wales were 6 performed on mental health grounds. No responsible legislator can ignore these statistics. The late Professor Anthony Clare stated in evidence to the previous Oireachtas hearings on abortion in 2000, that when he worked as a locum in Bermuda, the threat of suicide grounds for abortion was widely exploited, placing psychiatrists in an impossible position.7 In California, the Therapeutic Abortion Act 1967 allowed abortion where the woman is dangerous to herself or to the person or property of others or is in need of supervision or restraint. Only three years later, 98.2% of all abortions (61,572) in California were on this ground. Britains biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, openly admits it is not the case that the majority of women seeking abortion are necessarily at risk of damaging their mental health if they continue their pregnancy. But it is significant that, because of the law, women and their doctors have to indicate that this is the case. 8
04
05
06
CONCLUSION
Any legislation based on the flawed X case ruling would corrupt the practice of psychiatry and the practice of obstetrics. It would also corrupt the law because despite all the half-truths and worse being told by those touting the proposal, it would legalise abortion, the deliberate taking of innocent human life, and once that principle is gone, its gone. And when those seeking wide-ranging abortion arrive at the door of the Court and start pushing, they would find that the door against abortion has been opened and there is no legal principle to prevent them getting the wider level of abortion that they wanted all along. Once the principle has been conceded, once it is legally permissible to deliberately destroy an innocent life, from that point on, no innocent human life can be sure of the protection of the law.
07
FOOTNOTES
David M. Fergusson, L. John Horwood and Joseph M. Boden, Abortion and mental health disorders: evidence from a 30-year longitudinal study, British Journal of Psychiatry (2008), 193, pp. 444-451. 2 3 Oireachtas Hearings on Abortion, 8th January 2013, pp 74-75
10
Trends in Maternal Mortality 1990 to 2010, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank: Estimates, (2012) http://whqlibdoc.who.int/ publications/2012/789241503631_eng.pdf 11 Using only information from death certificates, the Infant Mortality, Stillbirths and Maternal Mortality, CSO Report on Vital Statistics 2010, (2012) gives Irelands maternal mortality rate as 4 deaths per 100,000 for 2009, 1 death per 100,000 for 2010. This method gives the figure for one year rather than an average over a number of years. http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/ documents/vitalstats/2010/chapter42010.pdf 12 In addition to death certificates, the Confidential Maternal Death Enquiry in Ireland, Report for the Triennium 2009 2011, August 2012, also draws information from coroners, pathologists, maternity units, general hospitals, public health nurses and GPs, and give Irelands maternal mortality rate as 8 deaths per 100,000 for the combined years 2009 and 2010. http://www.mdeireland.com/pub/MDE_ report_w_2012.pdf 13 Notwithstanding attempts to make political capital out of the new way of calculating the rate, the idea of drawing new sources of relevant information into the analysis could well prove to be a valuable addition to understanding all the factors relevant to maternal safety, though the higher the level of data required, the fewer countries will be able to reach it and the greater the role of estimates in drawing up the comparative table.
Gissler, M, et al., Injury deaths, suicides and homicides associated with pregnancy, Finland 19872000, European Journal of Public Health, Volume 15, Issue 5, 2005, pp. 459-463. 4 5 6 Report of the Expert Group on the judgment in A, B and C v Ireland, p 37 Irish Independent, 21st December 2012
Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2011, National Statistics, Department of Health, May 2012, pp 8-9. https://www.wp.dh.gov.uk/transparency/files/2012/05/ Commentary1.pdf 7 Fifth Progress Report: Abortion, The All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, November 2000, page A 130 8 Abortion Review, 2nd May 2012, http://www.abortionreview.org/index.php/site/ article/963