Over 85 percent of Irish people support limited abortion

Gearoid would let the woman die to avoid shortening the life of a non-viable fetus. GavinE does not like calling that situation murder? OK, call it culpable homicide. When doctors can save a life with a medical procedure and they refuse to do it, they are responsible for the death. If they want to sacrifice their own lives to prolong the life of a dying fetus, let them do that, but they have no right to sacrifice a pregnant woman's life just to prolong a life that they cannot save. Doing nothing in such a crisis allows them to delude themselves that they have not caused the avoidable death, nature has caused it. But the truth is clear.

I suggest Peaches Melba should apologise to Gearoid4 for the disgraceful comment in Peaches' last post (5.54 pm, Dec. 6th)

I can only concude that gearoid would murder the mother to save the fetus.

Gearoid4, do you know what a petitio principii is? You're expert at constructing it. Seano's question assumed, quite reasonably, that abortion was necessary to save the life of the woman, and asked you to decide whether that should be done. You beg that question when you write, "Abortion is not necessary." The scenario you present has doctors futzing around looking as though they are working to save both lives while one life is already doomed by miscarriage and the other life hangs in the balance, waiting for a life-saving abortion. And you say "without intentionally seeking to destroy the life of the fetus." That's the scenario that ends in avoidable death. That's the "let the woman die" scenario, and you do not seem to realize that those who allow the avoidable death to occur are responsible and morally culpable. In Canto III of The Inferno, Dante writes about the souls who, in life, refused to decide: "that retrograde and faithless crew hateful to God and to his enemies" (Ciardi trans. 59-60). It's an indefensible position.

@Seano, The answer is there for you to see, if you have a mind to see it. Abortion is not necessary as there is no bar, legal or moral, from medical teams intervening to save the lives of the mother, without intentionally seeking to destroy the life of the fetus or embryo. So no to abortion.

Now talk of mincing words Gearoid I asked the question "If a decision on the life of the mother or the child hast to be made who should live and who should make the decision". I'm not twisting your words you present your answer in a long winded fashion so you do not have to answer yes or no. And here you are again with 15 lines of nothing to avoid the answer, how disingenuous of you.

@Seano, Methinks that you are are deliberately twisting my words or disingenuously reading into them something that is not there. I did not at any stage during my previous comments even close to suggesting that abortion was a necessary procedure. If you had followed my words closely(which I doubt), you would've noticed that I stated that "in some instances the child in the womb may die as an unintended consequence which is very tragic and is accommodated again within the Catholic medical ethos". Now this could not be construed as advocating the deliberate targeting of the fetus or embryo for death, which abortion certainly is. I shouldn't have to re-state my point or rephrase it, but here it is again-It is permissible for doctors under Catholic medical guidelines, to directly intervene to save the life of the mother without intentionally desiring the death of the child in the womb. Unfortunately sometimes the nascent life may die as a result of the drastic treatment which is enforced. Some may call it an "indirect" abortion, but this semantic word-game should not hide the hideous immoral nature of an act which has the singular intention of destroying an innocent life. The unintentional death of a child in the womb during treatment to save the pregnant mother is analogous to a patient dying from the adverse side-effects of a life-saving medication that he is receiving

Therfore Gearoid4 abortion is sometimes neccassary. Thank you for answering the Question and I am glad to read you are not against abortion.

Thank you, Gearoid4, I hadn't realised that about KH. As I have said previously, I think there are going to be a lot of people with egg all over their faces when the investigation is finished. I can see the media running up the drainpipes already. Now, I wonder where Mr. O'Dowd has gotten to? He slid in a nasty little one-liner on this post recently, I responded, but he left it. That's the problem with journo's - they just can't take it when it is THEY who are on the receiving end.

@Seano, Far from being a "beaten man", I will repeat my argument again which I have already stated several times, for your erudition and that of others, there is no toss-up between a pregnant woman's life on one hand and the fetus/embryo on the other(both have equal value), as a medical team should do all in their power to save the life of the mother(and baby if possible). There is nothing preventing doctors in Catholic ethics from directly intervening to save the life of the mother(and in some instances the child in the womb may die as an unintended consequence which is very tragic and is accommodated again within the Catholic medical ethos). There has been an interesting update on the "Savita" case, as it has been revealed that the Irish Times journalist, namely Kitty Holland had let the cat out of the bag with respect to the original claim(somewhat spurious to begin with) that the husband of Savita, Praveen had requested abortion to save his wife. When radio interviewer Marc Coleman of Newstalk 106, asked her, “You’re satisfied that he did request a termination?” Holland responded, “Oh, I’m not satisfied of anything.” This journalist had put a disclaimer in the English newspaper "The Observer" with regard to her account of the story there, to the effect that “The fact that Savita had been refused a termination was a factor in her death has yet to be established” which differed somewhat from her initial story in the "Irish Times" on November 14th, some days before that an abortion was definitely requested. Holland in stuttering fashion tried to paint Praveen as the source of this discrepancy as he got his timelines a "little muddled". It looks like some interesting developments have yet to unfold regarding this case.

Gearoid4 please answer the question.Your silence is deafening. Have you retired from the conversation a beaten man??

GavinE, your 3.55am post is excellent. Yes, it's really always about the "source" and never about the application of intelligence with the bitter anti-Catholics on here. As a published author I am greatly amused at the ease with which an illiterate Irish woman with a criminal background and history of lying could dupe 400,000 gullible souls desperate to affirm any nonsense that furthers their cause.

Oh, I see, anglo-norman, you think the Republican Party is involved in a "War on Women". What a Total Goofball you are. Now, don't get angry, Son. Remember, meditation, tranquility, apple blossom, jingle bells, falling petals. There now, sleep, Son, sleep ............

It does not matter who told the truth and who might have lied in Savita's case. Her case points up the inherent problem in Irish law, which remains problematic whatever the outcome of the inquiry into Savita Halappanavar's treatment in the Galway hospital. The problem lies in the "equal right to life" wording of section 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution and in the 1861 law's section on abortion. These must be repealed. Savita's case, like other cases in which abortion is necessary to save one life and results in no unavoidable death, shows why it is not possible in practice, not at all "practicable," to save either life when medical treatment is constrained by the "equal" right of two: the pregnant woman and a non-viable foetus. A four-month foetus acquires stand-in advocates-- physicians, psychiatrists, and churchmen-- who effectively nullify the "equal right" of women in crisis pregnancy by their insistence on not killing the dying foetus by aborting it. Section 40.3.3 functions to mask, with a pious pretense of "equality," the same "let women die" approach that the GOP has taken to US abortion law in its war on women.

Well said, Mike Roe. Totally with you.