Abortion in Ireland: Does the Church Ask Too Much?

Melinda Henneberger

Editor in Chief

Posted:

12/11/09

So is the super-restrictive abortion law that Delia Lloyd wrote about a violation of human rights? To me, yes, and what's more, any law that includes no exceptions for the health of the mother is so punitive to women and families that it's also a political nightmare for pro-lifers, only reinforcing the stereotype that our true agenda is anti-woman.

And life imprisonment? Yikes, I don't want to see women or their doctors thrown in jail; again, on the contrary, that's my idea of both a practical and political train wreck. (Although setting aside the abortion issue, my own view is that many medical practitioners could use a bracing night or two in lockup for such crimes as not listening worth a darn and keeping one hand on the doorknob at all times.)

I'm sorry to acknowledge that this overboard Irish law is obviously the product of its culture, and of the imperfect Catholic Church I love and sometimes find myself at odds with; observant Catholic women are not required to put the survival of an unborn child before their own, should it come to that. Yet the church does send mixed messages on that front, lionizing women who die in childbirth after making just that choice.

Take St. Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian mom and pediatrician who died in 1962 after refusing an abortion, despite knowing that carrying her fourth child to term might well kill her. The saint-making process is a highly political business -- well, only God makes saints, but the church acknowledges them to drive home a specific message – and when Molla was named a saint five years ago, I didn't doubt her worthiness but did regret the oh-don't-mind-me message -- and wondered what the family she'd left behind thought about her decision.

I say this as someone who did make a similar (though way less dramatic) choice; when I was pregnant with my twins, who are 13 now, my first OB encouraged me to abort and start over after I developed multiple-pregnancy-related tachycardia that eventually required me to be on bed rest for seven months. Through some mix of intuition, hormones and cockeyed optimism, I never felt as though my life was truly at risk. But I don't think the church should even obliquely suggest to women who are facing a medical death sentence that there is only one right answer.