I see that the "pro-lifers" are issuing death threats. Not that they condone violence. But "it is inevitable, given the nature of abortion".
In a submission to the Southern government's working party on abortion, Youth Defence points to violent clashes outside abortion clinics in the US and warns of similar "civil unrest" here, too, unless everybody does what the adolescent Niamh Nic Mhathuna tells them. The "unrest" in the US which they refer to has included the murder of doctors and other staff at abortion clinics.
"There is no possibility of compromise," pouts Youth Defence.
Strange, though, that nowhere in their 45-page exposition of the "pro-life" case do they explain why the bible doesn't have a bad word to say about abortion. Wifely disobedience, uppity slaves, tax fraud, bestiality - the bible condemns them all. But not abortion. Does it never strike them that this is rather odd?
Like all anti-choice zealots, they are adamant that no sin is more evil in the eyes of god. They ignore the fact that god kept schtum on the subject when he was compiling his rule-book for human behaviour.
All the references in the bible to a soul entering the human body make the development simultaneous with breath entering the body. There is not a single phrase or sentence suggesting that "ensoulment" takes place at conception.
"Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord" - Ezekiel 37: 4-6.
It is when god puts breath into the body that human beings gain knowledge of god. Could it be any clearer?
Yes, it could.
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" - Genesis 2:7.
The sequence is simple and clear. It follows that it is unbiblical, and arguably blasphemous, to believe that a soul enters the body at the moment of conception. To maintain such a thing is to reduce the mystery of life to the penetration of an ovum by a sperm. It is to put the male ejaculation above the generative power of god.
I greatly fear that Youth Defence will one day re-convene in hell. These young people would be well advised to give over parading in the streets with pictures of foetuses and go home instead and read their bibles.