Mary Kenny
Mary Kenny writes that “we are in much darker, much more distressing territory” as the conflict surrounding abortion continues
Those organising the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution – which recognises the unborn as a human life – are hoping to follow the example, and the success, of the same-sex marriage referendum.
Ed Brophy, formerly chief of staff to Tánaiste Joan Burton at the time of the same-sex marriage plebiscite, Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty Ireland and Kate O’Connell TD are among those advising the ‘Repeal the Eighth’ campaign, in the mould of the 2015 referendum.
Some of the advice offered is shrewd. Mr Brophy counsels avoiding extremes, and Ms O’Connell says that the best tactic is to “tell stories” about real people.
Well, we shall see what transpires from the Citizens’ Assembly findings and how the repeal lobby decides to focus its tactics.
But it seems to me that there are crucial differences between approaches to same-sex marriage and attitudes to abortion.
Propositions
I encountered quite a few individuals, during the same-sex marriage campaign, who did not agree with the proposition, and who still adhered to the view that marriage was between a man and a woman. And yet, they chose not to make their views felt publicly, and to abstain from voting, out of a sense of kindness and tolerance.
They personally knew and liked gay people, often had good friends who were homosexual, or might have been themselves of a homosexual orientation – and they didn’t want to send a message that seemed bigoted or rejecting. And, in the public eye, there were sunny-tempered and popular celebrities like Graham Norton. You wouldn’t want to ‘rain on their parade’.
These ambiguous feelings – of retaining the historical view that marriage is between a woman and a man, yet not wanting to disrespect the aspirations of friends and neighbours – played a major role, I would suggest, in the outcome of the of same-sex marriage referendum. Where people were silent on the issue, they may have felt intimated by a certain element of ‘political correctness’: but often they genuinely didn’t want to offend.
Abortion is a much starker situation. You may indeed feel that no woman should be forced into motherhood, as well as having the deepest sympathy for parents faced with a distressing diagnosis of carrying a child with life-limiting conditions. Yet when you see the clinical evidence, in photographs and in written testimonies – Abby Johnson’s book about working in an abortion clinic, The Walls are Talking or McAleer and McElhinney’s alarming study of the American abortionist Kermit Gosnell – the facts of the situation emerge in a terrible light. A Graham Norton-ish sunny-tempered reaction belongs to a different world.
We are in much darker, much more distressing territory. Pointedly, Rory O’Neill – aka ‘Panti Bliss’ – has himself spoken out against assuming that gay and transgender people are pro-abortion.
When the same-sex marriage vote was carried, the celebrations were a riot of pink. Even for those who didn’t support the ‘Yes’ vote, there was a sense that the victors were entitled to their street parties, which, for the participants, was a celebration of human love.
Does anyone open a bottle of champagne to celebrate terminating a pregnancy and ending a human life? It’s an entirely different scenario.
Learning from failure
The science broadcaster Professor Brian Cox says that he loves to fail when he is doing science, because failing means he has learned something. Science, he says, is all about failing, and learning from it. His hero is Thomas Edison, who failed to invent the electric light many thousands of times before he finally succeeded. Inspiring.
A mother’s influence
There is a noticeable number of Irish names emerging in the Trump administration: Paul Ryan, John Kelly, Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn (and not forgetting Mike Pence, whose family hails from Sligo). Like it or not, the Irish in America have always been drawn to politics and often succeeded in the field too.
The new conservative judge of the Supreme Court (nominated by President Trump, not yet endorsed), Neil Gorsuch [pictured], has some Irish roots too, being the child of a Catholic Irish-American mother, a feisty Republican politician herself, Anne Burford Gorsuch, born Anne Irene McGill; her own mother was Dorothy O’Grady.
Mrs Gorsuch was a brilliant lawyer who garnered many laurels as a student and post-grad. She was elected to the State Legislature of Colorado and appointed by Ronald Reagan to run his environmental agency, but her tenure ended in a debacle when she was accused of cutting back too rigorously on polluting businesses and she resigned. Described as a funny, tough woman who had a great way with people, her son Neil feels deeply that she was unjustly treated. (A fierce smoker, she died in 2002 aged 62.)
I am always interested in how people are influenced by their mothers, and according to the New York Times, his mother was the strongest influence in Judge Gorsuch’s life.