Press release from The Iona Institute

THERE ARE many troubling aspects to the recent case where a  foreign national’s baby was delivered early by Caesarean section, Breda O’Brien of the Iona Institute said today.

“There are reports that the young woman was terrified of an unspecified person, and even afraid that she might be killed,” said O’Brien. “If these reports are accurate, were the Gardai informed? Were any efforts made to ensure her safety?”

She continued: “It is also deeply troubling that there is now a young baby struggling for life in a Dublin hospital, because she or he was delivered on the cusp of viability.  There have been allegations that this child was born as the result of rape, and suggestions that it would have been better, given the circumstances of the conception, that this child had been aborted at an early stage.

“In this age of information, this child will eventually be able to access all that was written or said about him or her now. Do we really want this child to hear the message that it would have been better that he or she was never born?”

“This child is living proof of the inconvenient truth that abortion ends a life, and in the case of suicidal ideation, ends a life with no medical evidence that it is of any benefit to the mother,” O’Brien continued.

“This legislation has been flawed since the beginning, and the struggles of this baby who only has a 20%-30% chance of surviving without significant deficits are a cruel and tragic consequence of the unwillingness of many legislators to listen to reason,” O’Brien said.

“There are better solutions for vulnerable women than the Hobson’s choice of abortion or early delivery, but it demands far more of us as a society, and the tragedy is that we seem willing to offer the quick fix, but not the kind of sustained care that someone who is suffering from suicidal ideation really needs,” O’Brien concluded.

ENDS