D Case
Introduction
In order to persuade the public that their intentions are honourable, pro-aborts often focus attention on what they see as the hard cases, erroneously arguing, for example, that abortion is the compassionate answer to a pregnancy conceived through rape. To date, they have balked at publicly supporting abortion of the handicapped since protection of people with disabilities has always been at the core of the Irish value-system. During the ‘D' case however, their behaviour and language revealed the kind of mentality that supports the legislation of abortion; a mentality devoid of compassion and driven by a strange and profound desire to dehumanise unborn children.
Baby D, like many other children, suffered from a defect. In this instance it was anencephaly, which causes incomplete formation of the brain and leaves the baby with a very short life span. Abortion campaigners and their allies in the media described this baby as less than human, claiming the child "had no head" amidst other ludicrous and disgusting statements. They hoped that by equating a disabling condition with a lack of humanity, the killing of the innocent baby could be justified. In this they were greatly assisted in this way by barristers who argued in the High Court that Baby D deserved no legal protection because his/her condition meant he/she was not an "unborn person".
Likewise, Justice Liam McKechnie's ruling came under fire from pro-life groups and people with disabilities for remarks he made regarding Baby D who he called "an aberration of nature". It was a dreadful and shameful thing to say, lacking pity, understanding or compassion.
Tony de Barra, a disability rights supporter said that ‘The sort of thinking that would deny a baby who may have a disability the right to life is offensive and intolerable. The tone of this comment indicates a view that abortion is the "cure" for disability. It has a negative impact for the disabled in society where they could be viewed as "the one that got away" - a sort of waste of resources.'
Tony and many others will join with Youth Defence, and others in a new campaign called Life Ability, which will create awareness of the need to protect all children from abortion, and highlight the eugenic and contemptible nature of abortion of the handicapped.
A key slogan of the campaign will be "What's the point in wheelchair access if I'm denied the right-to-life" and the campaign hopes to involve as many groups and individuals as possible. It was disappointing to see the muted response of groups representing people with disabilities to the D case. When the most fundamental right of all came under attack, groups representing the vulnerable remained silent. The Life Ability campaign aims to be a clear and consistent voice calling for full protection of children with disabilities.
Termination of Life
As usual, the pro-aborts have been trying to muddy the waters in their never-ending attempts to foist legal abortion upon the Irish people in a sinisterly undemocratic fashion, just as they did in the U.S. in Roe v Wade and in the case of R. v Bourne in the UK in 1938, when the first legalisation of an act of deliberate abortion was allowed.
The recent case of Miss “D”, covered as it is by a veil of secrecy and surmise, has done nothing other than further obfuscate the exceedingly clear life and death issue that is abortion. People are confused and that is the intention o
the pro-aborts. Even though they had hoped to turn the D-case into an ‘X’-case re-run with further abortion “rights”, they failed, thank God, but they tried to sow seeds of doubt where previously there would have been none.
We were told by the Irish Independent that Miss D had decided against an abortion after she had seen the images of aborted babies displayed on the internet. These pictures, so long a contrived source of controversy, are the last will and testament of those who never got to speak in their own defence. Their little dead bodies speak volumes for the murderous evil that is abortion. They spoke to Miss D!
When Miss D told her self-appointed handlers of her decision not to have her 18-week plus baby killed by any of the methods shown on the internet, they played a sly trick. They persuaded her that to terminate her pregnancy by early induction of labour prior to the viability of the child’s survival, even for a first and last breath, would not be abortion. She appears from her interviews to have been told that she would be induced, a common procedure in normal deliveries nowadays, and that she could hold her baby, have her baby baptized and then buried. None of this rings true to me, and I have been a veteran of the pro-life movement for 22 years.
In the reports after the death of her child, we were told that Miss D had had labour induced in a clinic in England, that this had lasted 5 days, and that her baby had been baptized and buried. Do we believe any of this? I don’t. I have seen many women who have had labour induced for a variety of reasons, but never have I heard of a 5-day labour. It would be a very dangerous thing to allow to happen and is probably next to impossible from a physiological perspective.
We are being lied to by the media, so that the public will be lead to believe that early termination of pregnancy with the deliberate intention of ending the child’s life is not abortion. If the intention is to kill the child, it’s abortion. Miss D may not know that, but facts are stubborn things. Induction of labour to save the life of a mother and/or her child is life-preserving, life-saving or at the very least that is the intent.
All crime, whether civil or against the Natural law, is based on intent, as is the punishment that is handed down in the absence of remorse and repentance. These are the facts. Anything else is speculation. If you ever find it confusing, go back to first principles. Is the intention to kill or to save life? Then you’ll know which is abortion.
The Media & D
As soon as the ‘D’ Case broke Youth Defence (YD) were in demand by the international, national and local press for interviews, debates and comments. Much of that was due to our long history of being to the forefront of the abortion debate in Ireland, and to the fact that at a time when many pro-life groups ran for cover, YD spoke out for mother and baby. Of course we used every engagement with the media as an opportunity to defend the rights of the unborn and to dispel the lies of the pro-abortion lobby. Not every reporter was fair, and most newspieces were unbalanced but somebody needed to be a voice for the unborn child and so we used the media as much as we could to speak out.
There were three main points on the case that we made with the press. Firstly, we questioned the motives of the HSE in the case. Why were they preventing this girl from travelling to England for an abortion when they never had a problem with escorting girls across the sea to have abortions in the past? The HSE had brought no less than six girls to England for abortions under similar circumstances in this year alone and now suddenly, three weeks before an election they feigned opposition. As YD said in the Irish Examiner, “We do know that the HSE have brought a number of girls in their care to England for abortions in the past without a problem and, now, three weeks before a general election, they prevent this girl from travelling and the issue ends up in the High Court. We would have to wonder whether this is some political decision from within the HSE to challenge Ireland’s abortion laws”.
The second point we made with the media was the fact that every child has a right to life, regardless of whether that child suffers from a disability or not and regardless of how long or short that child’s life may be. We raised this point on the airwaves the length and breadth of the country on RTE 1, Midwest Radio, LMFM, South East Radio, Clare FM, 98FM, Q102, FM 104, RnaG, and many others. In fact, raising the humanity of the child as a central issue in the case changed the debate for the better and it became the focus of our vigils outside of the court. Justice McKechnie even tried to take the attention away from the rights of the disabled by saying in court that, “this case is not about disabilities”. But as YD spokeswoman Carolyn Johnston pointed out during an hour-long discussion on FM 104’ s Adrian Kennedy Show: “Sometimes circumstances surrounding pregnancies differ and some are more difficult than others. But abortion kills a baby in the exact same way, regardless of whether the child is disabled or not.”
The third point we raised was an appeal for Miss D to get true information on abortion. We questioned who had advised her and who was giving her information on abortion and on her baby’s condition. Eoghan de Faoite, in a live feed for SKY News outside of the courts, appealed for Miss D to be given true information on abortion, knowing that the truth about abortion changes peoples hearts and minds. Later, in an interview with the Irish Independent Miss D said that she had looked up pro-life websites, saw photos of what abortion does to a baby and decided she didn’t want that happening to her baby. What happened since is unclear though it appears that Miss D was persuaded that an early induction was not an abortion, regardless of intent.
The YD vigils outside of the High Court were shown by every TV station and newspaper in the country. It was important, in the midst of the clamour for the death of Baby D, to see that people will always make a stand for Life.
