Paschal Donohoe is interviewed in the current issue of Hot Press. He ranges over many issues, including abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. He supports repeal of the 8th amendment, is ambiguous about euthanasia, and is enthusiastic about gay marriage and critical of the Catholic Church’s attitude to same.
Let’s look at what he has to say about these one by one.
Abortion
He supports abortion in cases of rape, incest and where a baby has a ‘fatal foetal abnormality’. On this last point he says: “We must treat women who found themselves dealing with that unbearable trauma far better than we are supporting them at the moment…And that is why I want to see change in the Eighth Amendment to support mothers who are dealing with that. I don’t find acceptable the idea that mothers who have to deal with this awful sadness should have to leave our shores to get the support they need.”
Note what is missing from his thinking; the baby. He needs to explain why he believes that a baby who has a condition that will eventually kill it, whether that be in hours, days, weeks, months or in some cases years, has no right to life at all simply by virtue of the fact of being critically ill. If he says it is up to the parents to decide whether or not a critically ill baby has a right to life, that is the same as saying it does not have this right. Paschal Donohoe’s right to life is his inalienably and imprescriptibly and its existence is not dependent on anyone else’s opinion. How could it be?
However, it does seem that Donohoe wants the Constitution to recognise the right to life of the unborn in some circumstances. It would be good if he spelled that out in some detail.
Same-sex marriage
On same-sex marriage and the Catholic Church he says: “I did find it difficult, the tone that was adopted towards gay marriage by the Roman Catholic Church globally, not just here in Ireland…The love, the care, the comfort and the attraction that a gay couple have with each other is the exactly the same as what I have with my wife.”
It is course true that a gay couple can love each other every bit as much as an opposite-sex couple. In last year’s campaign no-one of note disputed that. What was at issue for those of us on the No side was the effect of changing the constitutional definition of the family on the rights of children.
We have given two men or two women the same right to found a family (which includes a right to have children) as a man and a woman. This removes from children the right (legal or moral) to have a mother and a father. It is not good enough to say this right does not exist because it cannot always be guaranteed because very few rights can be absolutely guaranteed.
What Paschal Donohue needs to consider is whether he believes that the role of a mother and the role of a father in raising children are exactly the same. Both Leo Varadkar and Frances Fitzgerald (entirely contradicting what the Government was saying during last year’s referendum) talked about the “vital role of fathers” when introducing their paternity leave scheme recently. Does Minister Donohue believe fathers have a “vital role” or that the role of mothers and fathers are entirely interchangeable?
On a related note, does he attach importance to the natural ties? If two men are raising a child, only one of them can be the biological parent. If this is exactly the same as the child being raised by his or her natural parents, that means the natural ties have little or no importance. (Question; does Paschal Donohoe support gender quotas? Does he believe men and women bring different contributions to politics, or does he believe it is simply a case of ensuring the two sexes are equally represented in politics? If so, then why not in the lives of children also?)
Euthanasia
Finally, on euthanasia, he says he is “personally uncomfortable” with it but doesn’t really explain why. What he does talk about is “the very small number of our citizens who found themselves facing unimaginable prospects of not being able to live their lives in any way” and his belief that “what is important is making sure that we have the right legal framework to support the families and the individuals and the medical staff who find themselves in that situation”.
He doesn’t spell out what that means but it is hard to believe it doesn’t involve giving some form of assent to euthanasia/assisted suicide. Certainly, I can’t see Paschal Donohoe opposing a campaign to legalise assisted suicide (subject to certain limits) if and when that gathers a big enough head of steam.
Last word
Our Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is obviously entitled to his point of view but the interview would have been much more instructive if he told us what he wants to replace the 8th amendment with, what he thinks about the place of motherhood, fatherhood and the natural ties in the lives of children, and if he had explained a bit more (or even a bit) why he is uncomfortable with euthanasia.
(A summarised news report of the interview is here).
