An Easy Thing To Forget

Caroline Simons of the Pro-Life campaign told the Joint Committe on Health and Children today that she was unaware of being in that pro-life video (below) broadcast on the American Christian channel EWTN.

Fine Gael TD Marcella Corcoran Kennedy said she couldn’t understand why Simons didn’t know about the EWTN video, considering she appears in it.

Caroline Simons: “In relation to EWTN. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry I can’t help you with that one”.

Later, she added: “I wasn’t aware that I was on it. I don’t know any agents of the culture of death, I hope. Certainly they haven’t introduced themselves to me.”

We’ll just leave this here so:

Previously: Come Dine With Me (Pro-Life Edition)


150 thoughts on “An Easy Thing To Forget”

  1. God be with the days when you weren’t persecuted for appearing in a simple agents of the culture of death viral…

    • At least she (unlike Ivana Bacik) didn’t lower herself today by attempting to charicature upstanding individuals as “mysoginists”; in the process lowering the tone of the relatively civilised abortion debate.

      Caroline Simmons is a credit to the women of Ireland no matter what side of the fence you’re on.

      • > attempting to charicature upstanding individuals as “mysoginists”

        They charicature *themselves* as misogynists… probably with all the misogyny they spout, I dunno.

        • Do you think priests and bishops don’t have mothers, sisters and nieces whom they love dearly? You should listen to the articulate, no-nonsense response from Fr Timothy Bartlett to Ivana Bacik’s outrageous charges before commenting further.

          • They are misogynists simply by the very fact that they are princes of the Catholic Church, that most anti-woman of organisations.

          • Will they let women hold the same jobs and equal posts in their organisation?

            Lets check – oh. No.

            Ergo, misogyny.

          • You’re all aghast at Ivana’s misogynists but homophobia is de rigueur for you: Remember last night, you apologised for your “bloodied underpants” and then revealed the following about yourself:

            ““With respect to the “bloody underpants” imagery I used — I know for a fact that this is the reality of gay “sex”. I understand this is a horrible image, but it’s one that’s all too conveniently ignored by homosexuals and those supporters of the homosexual lifestyle. Presenting to a qualified doctor with such injuries is your best bet.”

      • Hello ABM! Like a fly to the proverbial you’re all over this. You’ll excuse the guffaw I emitted when you referred to the “civilised abortion debate”. I’m sorry to rain on your parade and I know you hate being reminded of previous comments but let me remind you how “civil you” were to me two days ago and then again last night. Not only did you feverishly in a reply to me depict a graphic homosexual sexual encounter culminating in a “bloodied underpants” discovered by my mother but last night you went a little further. Given that it was the third occasion on which you have caricatured me in vivid, graphic and detailed homosexual sexual encounters by way of comment, you proffered a hollow apology (in which I have no interest) but you then gloriously left this rather telling response to me which others should see:

        “With respect to the “bloody underpants” imagery I used — I know for a fact that this is the reality of gay “sex”. I understand this is a horrible image, but it’s one that’s all too conveniently ignored by homosexuals and those supporters of the homosexual lifestyle. Presenting to a qualified doctor with such injuries is your best bet.”

        Not only does ABM reveal himself as a person with little understanding or experience of human sexual expression, but it never fails to amuse me the frenzied interest of ABM in the sexual lives of men who have sex with men which he elevates to near fetish levels. Not so much with women though. I wonder where his categorical and factual knowledge comes from? I’ve warned ABM that these comments say so much more about him but he appears willfully ignorant, just like Simmons of that which is staring ABM, the wretched sod, in the face.

        • Hello again Arbs. Regarding a question I put to you yesterday: Where did I say “go off and get Aids and die”? Put up or shut up.

          Also, you’re evidently not man enough to accept my apology from any offence I may have caused you. I was describing the realities of unprotected, unlubricated gay “sex” — a reality that any right-minded person would find disgusting. On that we can agree.

          On this site, from you, I have been butt end of rape jokes, suicide jokes, wishes that I was aborted, foul language, abuse, homophobic bullying, and censorship. So please don’t go around trying to claim the moral high ground. I’d advise you to man up and apologies. For a liberal site, it’s pretty illiberal and intolerant.

          Remember Arbs, you’re the one who started all this unpleasantness. All because you find the opinions of someone else to your dislike.

          Now stick to the issues at hand or bugger off. You’re harassing me at this stage.

          • I was describing the realities of unprotected, unlubricated gay “sex” .

            While that should more appositely be rendered “anal sex” as opposed to gay sex which is just not the preserve of gay couples, I am extremely taken aback by the breath of your knowledge. I take it back, you time online has been indeed productive. The things the world wide web can throw up, eh?

          • Oh and sweetie, I have been guilty of none of the following: ” I have been butt end of rape jokes, suicide jokes, wishes that I was aborted, foul language, abuse, homophobic bullying, and censorship”.

            Pointing out that you could do with a little help to sort yourself out is hardly mocking of people with mental health difficulties. Just like in the wake of your (deleted by moderator) comment to me about engaging in unprotected homosexual sex with my imagined boyfriend culminating in a “bloodied underpants” discovered by my mother, suggesting that this may reveal some personal issues on your part is hardly homophobic. One is entitled to judge you by your comments on here.

          • I wonder who really needs to present to their doctor, eh ABM! Physician heal thyself – this time literally. You poor sod. Thanks for the mirth though!

          • “wishes that I was aborted,” aw, that’s so sweet you remembered.

            Anyway, I feel for the likes of you and your fellow supporters of the “values” of the RCC, you are clearly victims of poor upbringing, unable to see the blatant power struggle here. This has nowt to do with God or the rights of the unborn, sure the priests by and large believe in that stuff as much as me or Albert Einstein. Sure most “catholics’ don’t believe in transubstantiation either, go figure. You see, what this is, is a struggle for influence and power. The RCC in this hole has gradually lost all the influence it used to have, divorce, homosexuality, immunity for molesting children, partially legal abortions. All these big lost battles are sending your lot down the path of complete obsolescence, thus loss of power, influence and crucially money for the lads back in Rome. So what they are doing now they are clinging on this little battle here, desperately trying to prove that somehow they are still relevant. They aren’t and history is showing this. They are using you and your fellow idiots because somehow you bought into all the rubbish, probably because you were traumatised as a child or brainwashed by fellow automatons. I hope this new lost battle will teach you the error of your ways.

          • It is probably neither here nor there but Albert Einstein was actually a bit religious. He felt that science without religion was lame.

            Other than that though, I agree.

      • I suspect Ivana Bacik ( unlike ABM ) would know the correct spelling of the words misogynist and caricature…but well done on attempting the rarely seen semi-colon.

        • ABM.

          Two top tips:

          Firstly, learn to spell before joining reasoned debate. It’s ‘caricature’.

          Secondly, methinks you protest too much about the wee gay folks. It reminds me of Eddie Long, Caleb Douglas Hesse, George Rekkers, Troy King, Ted Haggard, Jim West, Larry Craig …

          Perhaps one day, if you’re a good boy, ABM will be added to that illustrious list of homophobes.

  5. Yeah, this has been doing the rounds on twitter. Do you have the question as well? Is it possible she misunderstood?

    • This is what I got from thejournal.ie’s liveblog:

      13.42 – Caroline Simons says she doesn’t know about the EWTN video which some of her fellow witnesses have appeared in.

      14.03 – Marcella Corcoran Kennedy tells Caroline Simons she can’t understand why Simons doesn’t know about the EWTN video, considering she appears in it.

      Simons: “I wasn’t aware that I was on it. I don’t know any agents of the culture of death, I hope. Certainly they haven’t introduced themselves to me.”

      So Simons either totally misunderstood the questions, or she has a very bad memory…

  6. Out of everything that was discussed today, this is the best broadsheet.ie can come up with?

    • If it is as reported its quite telling regarding prominent pro-lifers grasp of reality and/or their honesty.

    • Calling people out for dishonesty is *so* not cool. How are they meant to win when they have to stick to silly things like facts and statistics sure?

    • Muahahaha – It seems everytime those Pro-Life people are in the limelight its with lies and deception. Don’t they have anything else to do with their lives than trying to force their backwards view on everyone? Fair enough I guess, the hearing must hear all parties…

    • Look what you came up with last night ABM! I’m sorry to rain on your parade and I know you hate being reminded of previous comments but let me remind you how “civil you” were to me two days ago and then again last night. Not only did you feverishly in a reply to me depict a graphic homosexual sexual encounter culminating in a “bloodied underpants” discovered by my mother but last night you went a little further. Given that it was the third occasion on which you have caricatured me in vivid, graphic and detailed homosexual sexual encounters by way of comment, you proffered a hollow apology (in which I have no interest) but you then gloriously left this rather telling response to me which others should see:

      “With respect to the “bloody underpants” imagery I used — I know for a fact that this is the reality of gay “sex”. I understand this is a horrible image, but it’s one that’s all too conveniently ignored by homosexuals and those supporters of the homosexual lifestyle. Presenting to a qualified doctor with such injuries is your best bet.”

      Not only does ABM reveal himself as a person with little understanding or experience of human sexual expression, but it never fails to amuse me the frenzied interest of ABM in the sexual lives of men who have sex with men which he elevates to near fetish levels. Not so much with women though. I wonder where his categorical and factual knowledge comes from? I’ve warned ABM that these comments say so much more about him but he appears willfully ignorant, just like Simmons of that which is staring ABM, the wretched sod, in the face.

        • LOL. It would only it get you going! You’ve no doubt got all night long to “research” this, you poor creature. Can I take this opportunity to say that you are a pleasure to counter-troll although you make it a bit too easy at times. Stay crazy!

  8. quick legal question. is lying to a senate committee not the same as perjury to a court and would have legal implications?

    • I was wondering the same thing. There was talk of “privilege” earlier but I think it may just mean speaking rights in the oireachtas.

      • i think the Chairman warned a couple of speakers that Dail Privilage did not apply to this hearing and that there could be legal implications with regard to naming people and incidents etc.

        • That explains Buttimer’s repeated interruptions any time someone alludes to anything to do with Galway.

  9. The Extreme Pro-Life groups have realised change is coming one way or the other and have resorted to two tactics. The church this morning called for a new referendum in the hope that they can overwrite the previous two in relation to abortion and suicide, & this yolk has resorted to saying that there is sufficient cover all ready under the law.

    Well if that is the case why do so many women have to travel to the UK Daily?

  10. 0.33 – “There has literally been a tsunami hitting Ireland”

    Everybody RUUUUUNNNNNN

  11. Ok I’m ready

    Great oh do you wanna take of the fur hat?

    No

    It just we’re indoors and it looks a bit..

    IT’S FINE I’M TRYING TO SAVE LIVES HERE

  12. In fairness she may not have seen the camera in front of her. She could have been innocently just standing there looking into mid distance and talking away to her hearts content about all sorts of matters and then blamo! …someone sneaks a pesky camera in front of her without her realising it. Can happen to the best of us.

    • that’s the problem with yes/no labels for such a complex issue. It could be argued that ‘pro-choice’ is pro-choice mammy and anti-choice baby.

      I would be against abortion on demand myself and for want of another label have stood on the pro-life side of the fence. While I wouldn’t walk under a pro-choice banner I certainly wouldn’t walk under a Youth Defence banner either! I find myself agreeing with an awful lot the pro-choice side has to say but for me I ultimately cannot forget that we are talking about a third person here, the unborn child. In saying all this I feel we certainly need to legislate and sort this issue out once and for all. I do shake my head in disbelief at the arguments the far right pro-life people put forward and their behaviour/tactics is an embarrasment to moderate pro-life people who want to help both mothers and babies.

      • Been listening to the whole debate trying to make sense of it for the last few weeks. Like the poster above I would never have been an advocate for abortion on demand, I’d like to think, that no matter the circumstance, I personally would never have an abortion.

        However there is one statement that I heard over the course of the debate that hasn’t left me and that is “we shouldn’t be exporting our problem to Britain”
        If there was no Britain next to us what kind of mess would we be in? Would we have women dying from attempting to abort their babies through illegal drugs, etc..? Would we have a much higher suicide rate (before and after pregnancy)?

        I just think we should include these women in the debate and not just ignore the fact that another country is providing solutions for them. It reflects very badly on our sovereignty.

        First comes education and contraception but I think compassion needs to be central also. The quantities, as well as the suffering of these women must be lessened by this legislation

        • Oh and I forgot to add that the tactics, billboards, wording and ridiculous videos like the one above, from pro-life groups, certainly are not compassionate and do not help.

          • Marie, nobody would force you to have an abortion. You would still be able to live by your own personal morality.

            Sarah K, there isn´t actually a third person. The undeveloped foetus can´t feel pain, cannot think and cannot survive independently of the mother.

          • That is where you and I differ. I believe it is a life from conception. My belief is not based on religious views just to make that clear. Having had 3 children myself I believed I was having a child from the moment I conceived irrespective of it being able to survive independent of me or its inability to feel pain etc.

            You believe otherwise and you are entitled to and that is why we have this debate.

    • He is very much in line with the Scary Guy On Late Late Show from a few weeks back. That stare would stop a clock

  18. Kathy Sinnott isn’t talking from an old halting site- it’s an area that was devastated by an abortion tsunami

  19. Since when is the Womens’ Council of Ireland pro-choice? Hopefully they’ll heammorage members (and state funding) after today. Any upstanding woman of Ireland should have nothing to do with this organisation — a disgusting lot who should never have gotten involved in this debate. They’ve gambled their reputation on this issue and lost. Good riddance.

    • Gems from the ABM archive. As rendered by ABM feverishly last night in reply to me: “With respect to the “bloody underpants” imagery I used — I know for a fact that this is the reality of gay “sex”. I understand this is a horrible image, but it’s one that’s all too conveniently ignored by homosexuals and those supporters of the homosexual lifestyle. Presenting to a qualified doctor with such injuries is your best bet.”

        • This comment raises the question of how does ABM remotely conisder that he has any right to label anyone else, ´a disgusting lot `.

    • lol @ anything to do with reputation. Denying that you are in an internet video is not damaging to reputation?

    • ABM, if you have spell check, I would suggest using it. I would have thought that you, who in your own words is a “highly educated individual” could figure this out.

      • Good point. Well done again, Arbs.

        If you recall, you were the snob who started the snide remarks regarding my education levels. If you wish to twist this reality to portray me as someone who was boasting — go right ahead. It shows you up for the dishonest poster that you are.

    • *Haemorrhage (noun):
      1. (Medicine / Pathology) profuse bleeding from ruptured blood vessels, eg, “He died of a brain haemorrhage”
      2. a steady or severe loss or depletion of resources, staff, etc, eg.
      “The Catholic Church continues to haemorrhage members due to the moral bankruptcy of its hierarchy”

    • Hopefully the Catholic Church will heammorage members (and state funding) after today. Any upstanding woman of Ireland should have nothing to do with this organisation — a disgusting lot who should never have gotten involved in this debate. They’ve gambled their reputation on this issue and lost. Good riddance.

      see what I did there?

    • Speaking of heamorrhages, here’s a fun fact – In 1944 McQuaid and the RCC campaigned against the introduction of Tampax in Ireland and after a private meeting with the secretary of health, succeeded in having them prohibited for sale for a period of time.

      • It’s actually a tragic fact. The obvious implication being that women should not be “fiddling with themselves” down there. It is the same rationale that had led some societies to engage in female genital mutilation which underscores, just as in Ireland in years gone by, a suspicion of female sexual expression and a desire to dispossess a woman of her own corporeal (and sexual) independence.

        • Its not even an implication. Its a crystal clear illustration of the lengths the church would go to in order to control women and their bodies. McQuaid was worried that the use of tampons would: ‘stimulate girls at an impressionable age and lead them to the use of contraceptives to satisfy their aroused passions’.

          • Once again, the bewildering ignorance of some men commenting on ‘women’s issues’ – having used tampons in the past, I can tell you right now there is nothing even vaguely pleasurable about stuffing a wad of cotton up inside you for several hours.

  20. Did anyone else read this mornings pieces about the different religious groups and think that the catholic response was so much worse than any of the other Christian representatives?

    Think the COI even said that considerations should be made for rape & incest.

    Why does the Roman Catholic view have to remain so stubborn and old fashioned??

  21. listen this person is clearly completely bananas, she is simply the sequel to crazy lone woman think-of-the-babbies protester on o’connell street in the eighties

  23. All the Vatican’s Men and Women – trying to do God’s work by using lies and misinformation to influence Irish legislation at the behest of a foreign state.

    Opus Dei = Vatican’s CIA.

      • Yeah blobster, my reading extends no further than moron fodder like that.

        I read history and politics at third level for fun and have personal experience of Opus Dei trying to recruit members of my family just because my parents were strict Catholics.

        So do one.

  25. So is there anyone who believes Caroline isnt lying?

    Tis not a big deal, all she has to do is visit a priest in a closet and say she’s sorry and it will be like it never happened.

    Catholicism – the religion where if you say sorry its the same as if it never happened.

  26. Can ABM and Arbs get their own thread (room) to spare us from their playground bullying/flirting? I am getting bored of the same rehashed comments moving from thread to thread. Just a thought…

  28. I don’t get it, if you’re so ultra-holy (in your head) and whatnot how can you just ignore the whole “not bearing false witness” thing? It’s a pretty big deal in Christianity…

  29. So many lies. So many lies.

    My favourite was; “Ireland’s healthcare system is the envy of the world.”

    Sure it is, David, sure it is.

    • Maybe the envy of Chile, which is just about the only country in the world with more restrictive abortion legislation than us – it’s 100% illegal in every case, not even bothering with semantics if a woman is dying.

      • Chile actually has a fairly decent health system compared to the rest of South America, abortion aside.

  31. Actually, Wendy Grace gushed about Catholics and her love for sex in an Irish Times article if I remember right……have an aul google of it

    • Had a read there. She doesn’t go quite that far but does refer to the church being cool with good sex within marriage in some bizarre attempt to make doctrinaire Catholicism relevant to young people.

      Just like her brother “who had previously spent many years living a ‘high flyers life’ in Ibiza” but “joined the priesthood in Rome”

  33. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE
    scary person
    perhaps she’ll join Lance on Oprah to try explain herself

  34. David Quinn: “Our health service is the envy of the world”
    …roflcopter!

  38. Its pretty simple for the pro-lifers, if you dont want an abortion, dont get one. By the same token, if you dont like (and you generally dont) divorce, “gay sex”, dildo’s etc. again dont get involved – thats fine. On the other hand if someone makes a choice they are generally best placed to decide whats best for them – most of the misery in this life is caused by people not being able to pursue their preferred choice!