Justine McCarthy, of The Sunday Times, addressing the Trailblazery ‘We Need To Talk About Ireland’ conference in March
In 1992, the judges of the Supreme Court heard evidence that Ms X, the pregnant 14-year-old girl, had told her mother she wanted to throw herself downstairs and had contemplated jumping in front of an oncoming train. Anti-abortion advocates have rubbished the court’s landmark judgment in the X case, on the grounds that it heard no expert psychiatric evidence. So what should the judges have done? Told the girl to get a grip, go home and give birth to her rapist’s baby? Medieval as it sounds, this is precisely what the Irish state will continue to tell rape victims after the current bill has passed into law. Should they attempt to terminate their pregnancies on Irish soil, they will be liable to arrest, trial and 14 years in prison.
Ms McCarthy in her Sunday Times column on June 30, 2013, before the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act was signed into law.
This weekend, as one of his predecessors is mourned, [Taoiseach Enda] Kenny should note how the encomiums to Albert Reynolds ring with tributes to his political courage. That personal quality helped deliver the 1993 Downing Street declaration and the IRA’s 1994 ceasefire, the early shoots of lasting peace on this island. Reynolds was the taoiseach for only 33 months but his guts won him an eternal place in history.
Kenny has demonstrated his own political valour. Now he has the opportunity to apply it to resolving an issue that has caused more than 150,000 females to sneak abroad for abortions since the 1983 referendum and that has caused others physical and psychological trauma, and even death. If he can bring an end to this 31-year horror, he too will have his place in history. More immediately, he could reap a reward in the next general election.
Ms McCarthy in her Sunday Times column (behind paywall) yesterday
Not that I was going to vote for FF/G anyway, but they’ve really gone and done it now.
Yeah, I read the article yesterday. whilst I agreed with her sentiments, I thought she totally over estimated Enda Kenny’s political courage.