One response to the current situation…

Still no clear statement from the anti-abortion organisations, or not one that I can find. But worth reading SPUC UK’s response for a sense perhaps of where this may go on the anti-abortion side.

No grey areas for them – and this by the way helps go some way to explaining the mind set of some of those who stood up in the Dáil in April and spoke with such certainty on the matter.


Paul Tully, SPUC’s general secretary, commented: “The full details of this case are not yet known, so we must await the investigations which have been launched before we can make definitive comments. What we do know is that miscarriage and infection can be managed by proper medical treatment. Abortion is not medicine – it does not treat or cure any pathology.”
Leading obstetricians with extensive experience in dealing with these situations have found that they can be successfully managed without abortion, while sometimes the pregnancy can be saved. This was recently confirmed at a symposium in Dublin by Dr Byron Calhoun, a US obstetrician

Ah yes, this symposium.

Anyhow:

Mr Tully continued: “It is not ethical to induce delivery of an unborn child if there is no prospect of the child surviving outside the womb. At 17 weeks’ pregnancy Mrs Halappanavar’s child was clearly not viable outside the womb, as there is no scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of surviving outside the womb at such a young age. Rather than removing the protection of the womb from unborn children, the ethical response to emergency situations in pregnancy is medical treatment of the mother for the conditions causing the emergency. In the case of infection, this is usually timely administration of antibiotics. It is also not ethical to end the life of an unborn child, via induction or any other means, where the child is terminally-ill.”



There’s the unvarnished view. No ifs or buts. Unviable, viable, doesn’t matter. Woman’s health at risk, or not. The answer is still no.