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Northern Ireland is a highly
patriarchal society. The leading figures in politics, the professions and the
judiciary are predominantly male, while women are still generally deemed to be
best suited as mothers and wives. This second class status in a society which is
part of the United Kingdom at the end of the 20th century is truly astonishing
and must be a major cause for concern to Humanists.
Ulster's patriarchy stems from a
fundamentalist religious outlook in which women are regarded as secondary
creations. Indeed, the one thing that all traditional religions have in common
is their treatment of women as inferior, and in theocratic states this
inferiority is enshrined in legislation and social custom. In Northern Ireland,
there is not one but two reactionary religious forces, Calvinist Protestantism
and Roman Catholicism, and both are opposed to equal rights for women. This
opposition can be seen clearly on the issue of abortion, where the denial to
women of the right to control their bodies reflects the general lack of control
over their lives.
Abortion is still illegal in both
parts of Ireland. The Abortion Act of 1967, which applies in England, Scotland
and Wales, was not extended to Northern Ireland. The present law in the province
dates back to the 19th century and prohibits abortion, except when it is
necessary to save a woman's life. In practice, abortions are performed in
Northern Ireland only when there is a serious risk to health or life.
If the medical profession refuses to
perform an abortion on a woman, she has three basic choices: make an expensive
journey to England, where she to pay privately for the operation; endure her
unwanted pregnancy; or have a backstreet abortion. Nearly 2,000 women annually
make the journey, possibly as many as 35,000 altogether since the 1967 act, to
obtain a service which is legal in all the rest of Western Europe with the
exception of Ireland.
Arguments against abortion in this
country are usually hypocritical. They generally revolve around the
so‑called 'right to life'. A typical syllogism goes as follows: direct
killing of innocent life is morally wrong; a foetus is an innocent life;
therefore direct killing of a foetus is morally wrong.
First, 'innocent life' is generally
restricted in the argument to humans. This is surely unwarranted. If we defend
the foetus as having a life with a stronger claim on us than animal life, then
we must be able to point to morally relevant properties it has but which animals
lack.
In point of fact, on any fair
comparison of such characteristics, like rationality, self-consciousness,
awareness, pleasure and pain, and so on, chickens, pigs and calves come out well
ahead of the human foetus at ANY stage of pregnancy. A fish or even a prawn
shows more signs of consciousness than a human foetus of less than three months.
Yet all these forms of life are
killed throughout Ireland ‑ a country with large agricultural and fishing
sectors ~ with no protest from anti‑abortionists, most of whom are quite
happy to eat them regularly. It is difficult to take seriously an ethic which
vents so much anger at abortions and yet remains silent at the widespread
slaughter of far more developed forms of life for the taste of their flesh or
for profit.
One counter to this argument is that
a foetus is a potential human being and human beings have more rights to life
than other life forms. But this will not do. Prince Charles is a potential King
of England, but he does not now have the rights of a king There is no reason why
a potential person, should have the rights of a real person. And this is precisely why the rights of mother are more
important than the rights of the foetus.
It is also possible to make great
play 'innocence'. It may allegedly be morally justifiable to kill other human
beings they are aggressive and attack us, but this case they are not
'innocent’ whereas a foetus is always innocent. This argument might seem
convincing until we realise that (1) innocence is quality of the living not of a
collection cells, and (2) those who kill other human being can always claim that
their victims were not entirely 'innocent.
The plea for the 'innocent' foetus
is, in fact, a type of moral blackmail which obscures more important moral
rights, such as the rights of women and children, the rights of suffering
animals and the rights of innocent victims of sectarian murders and beatings.
Humanists are concerned with the
QUALITY of life, so in general we believe it is right that some pregnancies
should medically terminated to avoid greater suffering and distress. Women are
the best judges of their own situation and the choice of abortion should be
available them, particularly where there is grave physical or psychological risk
or where the child would be born severely handicapped. Most Humanists would
therefore, call for the belated extension the 1967 Act to Northern Ireland.
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