The silence from the so called ‘liberal progressives’ around the issue of women who are being coerced into having abortions is as loud as it is hypocritical.
Aontú’s Senator Sarah O’ Reilly made her comments as Cavan Hospital became the last hospital in the country to begin performing abortions.
Senator O’ Reilly said.
“This is a desperately sad day for me, for the brave and truly principled prolife doctors, nurses and staff of Cavan Hospital, and most importantly of all for the thousands of little unborn lives that will be ended as a result of this very retrograde decision.
Cavan Hospital was the last bastion of safety for these tiny innocent and helpless lives.
In 2018, the then government promised voters that abortion would be rare if they voted for it. They did this purely to ram it through as almost seven years on, with over 10,000 abortions a year, it is anything but rare.
It has spiralled and there seems to be a determination to make it even more freely available with absolutely no talk about supporting women to help them keep their preborn babies.
Very disturbingly we know there have been misdiagnosis errors, potential life-threatening complications, coerced abortion, women living with post abortion regret, psychological burdens for hospital staff, and of course, the loss of human life on a massive scale.
Coerced abortion is happening across Ireland, and we have absolutely no reason to believe it is not happening to women in Cavan Monaghan, yet there is not a whisper from the usually vocal self-proclaimed ‘activists’ for ‘women’s rights.
I find this astounding and disturbing in equal measure.
Here we have possibly very vulnerable women, often in very emotionally unstable and dangerous situations, and not a peep out of those who screamed for the legalisation of abortion.
These people are silent in the face of a gross double injustice; to the woman being forced to abort her little baby and for those of us who defend human life, to the tiny, defenceless lives themselves.
When you consider that this is quite literally a life and death issue, it is deeply troubling how little care and compassion those who pushed so hard for repeal have in talking about the massive increase in abortions.
It seems that they are selective about what they deem to be an injustice, selective about rights and selective about supporting the right to conscience of medical staff who want nothing to do with performing or assisting abortions in any way whatsoever.
In Cavan as elsewhere, the right of doctors to exercise their freedom of conscience has not been respected by the government. Doctors have been unfairly pressured to facilitate abortions, and new hires are expected to perform abortions. This undermines freedom of conscience in a significant way. Doctors should not be mere tools of the state or be forced to violate their conscience in any way. That’s the very least we should expect in a functioning democracy.
I applaud the staff in Cavan General who put their principals before their own career advancement and promotion possibilities in a bid to protect the right to life for our most vulnerable.
These people who so bravely stood by their belief in the Hippocratic Oath to exercise ethical conduct and the core principal to “..do no harm” to patients in their care have my unwavering respect and the respect of those who cherish the right to life of the most vulnerable in our society.
In the past weeks many have privately signalled their distress at this new development which will involve the HSE bringing in new staff to carry out abortions.
There is a serious need for the new Minister for Health to adopt a different approach. It is a scandal that all the focus at present is on making abortion more widely available rather than putting supports in place so that no woman feels pressured down the road of abortion.
The right to life is the defining human rights issue of our time. That will continue to be the case regardless of what the law permits”.
