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Home Page > News > Labour minister at center of abortion storm as Fianna Fail and Pro Life movement go on attack

Labour minister at center of abortion storm as Fianna Fail and Pro Life movement go on attack

Pat Rabbitte accused of muzzling Catholic Church and debate

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 7:34 AM

Updated Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 8:48 AM

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Pat Rabbittee, Labour Party Minister

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Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, is at the center of an abortion row – with opponents claiming he is trying to muzzle debate and the Catholic Church.

Rabbitte has been heavily criticized by the Pro Life movement and the opposition party Fianna Fail as the abortion issue threatens to split the coalition government.

The Labour Party Minister is also at loggerheads with senior government partners Fine Gael after effectively telling the Catholic Church to keep their noses out of the debate.

Rabbitte had told state broadcaster RTÉ: “I don’t have any objection to any of the churches stating its position and making it clear, but I think it would be a retrogressive step if we were to go back to the days of the Catholic Church dictating to elected public representatives how they should address an issue.”

Now Fianna Fail has accused Rabbitte of ‘poisoning the atmosphere over the abortion issue, showing disrespect for the Catholic Church and trying to muzzle debate’.

The Irish Times reports that the Pro Life Campaign has also criticized Rabbitte and claimed he was trying to suppress discussion and ‘intimidate’ the church from being involved in the public arena.

Fianna Fáil deputy Billy Kelleher has even accused Rabbitte of being disrespectful towards Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady.

Kelleher said: “One thing that all sensible observers agree on is the need for restrained and respectful engagement with the issues.

“Unfortunately, Pat Rabbitte’s contribution on Sunday’s RTÉ This Week programme, when he said the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland should not be involved in any political debate on the issue, was neither restrained nor respectful.

“Mr Rabbitte succeeded in poisoning the atmosphere for engagement and is creating conflict before the expert report on abortion has even been finalized.”

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eiriamach | Sep 01, 2012, 01:41 PM EDT

Nature changes! Some seven-year-old girls are entering puberty. Their bodies will be capable of pregnancy by age nine. But nine-year-old bodies cannot give birth. The attempt kills both the girl and the fetus. It takes quick medical intervention to prevent such agonized death. As in the notorious case of the nine-year-old pregnant rape victim in Brazil, any physician with a shred of humanity evacuates the uterus to preserve the life of the child. But the Roman Catholic Church refuses to revise its flawed understanding of "natural law"-- morality in accord with nature-- when nature changes or science reveals hidden truths. In prior centuries, when popes realized that science or an evolving sense of human dignity had rendered Church teaching clearly mistaken, they silently *changed* the teaching and, for example, replaced pro-race-slavery encyclicals with anti-slavery encyclicals. But now the Church thinks it can survive only by clinging to its past, mistaken, anti-scientific and inhumane teachings on sexuality vs "modernism" (science). "The Roman Pontiff cannot err when defining matters of faith or morals"-- Vatican Council I, 1870. Recent popes have attempted to apply "back-door infallibility" to undeniably fallible teachings, rather than opening their souls to the redemptive grace of reforming or rescinding false doctrines. Organisms that refuse to change stagnate and die; so too, religions and governments that refuse to change with emerging truth will stagnate and die.

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esatdigiwank | Aug 31, 2012, 06:59 AM EDT

Bring back REal Men ha ha. By that Mairint, you mean the Soldiers of Infamy, the up-Devs, the non-thinking provincial shyster village-pump cretins? Or maybe a Roman Catholic T#liban movement? Let the Church handle its financial bother ie persuading widows/widowers into changing their Wills, whence not passing down Inheritances...they have no right to contribate to any political debate or policy-making any longer.

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eiriamach | Aug 30, 2012, 06:34 AM EDT

Gearoid4 writes in reply, "One should not compound the original crime with another evil." This reply is the mistake of reasoning that logicians call "petitio principii," or circular reasoning. It happens when someone refuses to deal with facts and simply asserts a conclusion without providing any support, any reasons to back it up. Now that is precisely the problem I drew attention to -- turning the political forum over to churchmen who DICTATE their idea of right and "evil" without bothering to supply any reasoning from ethical principles or from factual or even hypothetical examples. When you think you alone are in possession of the whole truth, you see no need to give reasons, right? Gearoid4 simply insists that it would be "another evil" to remove a shred of embryonic tissue from the uterus of a child impregnated by a rapist. While most 12-year-old female bodies can become pregnant, most cannot give birth. Thus, pregnancy is often a death sentence for a child unless physicians intervene. If eclampsia does not kill her, trying to give birth will, and the probability of an abnormal fetus, along with complications of pregnancy resulting from abnormality, is high. What kind of ethical principle could ever compel parents to sacrifice the health or life of their 12-year-old child in such a way? How can any thinking human being consider that scenario to be the will of God or anything other than unspeakable evil? There's a commandment against allowing needless human suffering, and most people consider it a tenet of natural law ethics as well. But whatever your position on abortion, you can plainly see the problem with allowing churchmen and doctrinaire Catholics, who cannot or will not engage in reasoned debate, to dictate "moral" rules to the Dáil as Gearoid4 dictates here.

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Gearoid4 | Aug 29, 2012, 06:28 PM EDT

last commentary ctd- If abortion is legislated for in certain cases, you can be certain that it will open the door to abortion on demand, as has been the case in the UK. This seems to be the objective of the so called "pro-choice" brigade. This must be resisted by all right thinking people

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Gearoid4 | Aug 29, 2012, 06:23 PM EDT

@Eiriseamach, Why do you assume that Churchmen will "Dictate"(I supposed you had to use the caps lock here for emphasis), as opposed to reasonably engaging with their listeners on abortion? Cardinal Brady fully recognizes that the era of automatic deference to the Church has passed and that he will have to fight his corner like everyone else. The Cardinal and his fellow bishops appreciate that, but do not want to be unfairly forced off the playing pitch before the game has begun. This seems to be intention of minister Rabbitte but Catholics and other Christians won't be silenced or have their rights to lobby denied. A child impregnated by a rapist is a terrible situation for the young victim and her family to go through and it does not lend itself to pat answers. But another victim becomes apparent when one talks about the destruction of the foetus or embryo which results. One should not compound the original crime with another evil. If abortion is legislated for in favor of it in cert

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cillowen | Aug 29, 2012, 11:49 AM EDT

rabbit doesn't want 'em breeding like rabbits. Who knew?

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eiriamach | Aug 29, 2012, 08:24 AM EDT

I cannot believe that the writer of this article has been fair to Rabbitte's position. Churchmen AS churchmen have no standing in the political forum. EVERY individual has a right to contribute freely to the debate. But as long as churchmen DICTATE doctrines and demand OBEDIENCE without engaging in debate on the issues, they are co-opting the public forum and the Dáil to exercise sectarian political power. Can you formulate an ethical argument to show why a 12-year-old child's life and health should be jeopardized, along with the life and health of the fetus in her womb, in order to bring the offspring of a rapist to birth? Can you really offer fact-based REASONS tied to principles of ETHICS to support such a position? Can you convince reasonable, knowledgeable people that natural law requires you to sacrifice one victimized child to the possibility that another child will be born healthy, capable of a living a human life? Remember, I said "fact-based." Check out the facts on such pregnancies. Then assemble your argument for coercing pregnant females, including children. But to have a churchman ordering legislators to obey Catholic teachings on such matters is to hand over your government to the Vatican. Only fools or slaves do that!

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Seanmor | Aug 28, 2012, 09:58 PM EDT

It seems that Ireland,North and South, is now the only nation in Europe that still zealoisly protects the lives of unborn human beings. However, the Dáil's Labour leader may have his wish granted if the E.U. Court of Human Rights decides that the Irish state must establish abortion clinics, so as to kill unborn babies.

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seanomelb | Aug 28, 2012, 08:33 PM EDT

The church can preach it's opposition to the abortion debate in its empty churches lokionline who injects the soul at conception??? A doctor,priest,midwife???

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misneac | Aug 28, 2012, 08:28 PM EDT

The disrepest these jumped up atheists like Rabbitte show to the Catholic Church is incredible .You are now in Ireland as a Catholic not entitled to express a point of view ! I am certain that Rabbitte would not go out to Clonseagh and tell the Muslims that they can not express their opinions .

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mairint | Aug 28, 2012, 08:07 PM EDT

As long as men think women can be used and discarded if a pregnancy occurs, they have no right to declare in favour of killing the preborn child. Pat Rabbitte do you want to be appointed Ireland's first Lord Chief Executioner? You are a disgrace to your gender. Bring back REAL men. We are tired of wimps.

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aloistmartin | Aug 28, 2012, 04:49 PM EDT

The differences that separate Ireland's Bi-Partisan Politics, would not draw a glance from Prince Phillip`s morning paper over tea and bisquits !

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lokionline | Aug 28, 2012, 04:13 PM EDT

As long as people believe they are some kind of eternal spiritual being (a soul) temporarily inhabiting a human body and that they get injected into that body at conception, this debate will never be resolved.

That world-view is simply incapable of seeing life as a process that comes into being in finite time.

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