The pro-death movement

Is it possible that people did not see this coming? Is it possible that the leaders of the European nations, and the EU, thought that the United States would play by the rules in Afghanistan? Is it possible that the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Taoiseach, and the Government, also believed what they read on George Bush's tin?

If so, they were incredibly naive. In the wake of the September 11th atrocity, even when the military response of the U.S. was in its infancy, I wrote that we were being dragged down into a moral swamp, in which it seemed that anything had become permissible. To some, it might have seemed like an alarmist perspective at the time. But as the war in Afghanistan grinds mercilessly on, it has become increasingly clear: the rules have long been forgotten, as much by the Americans and the British as by their Northern Alliance allies. Afghanistan 2001 is taking us back to the Killing Fields. Except that this time, it is the West, and its local allies, that are responsible for the slaughter.

Any notion that this is a sanctimonious, wet liberal way of looking at things has been smashed by the events of the past week. The war in Afghanistan makes gruesome and unpleasant viewing at the best of times. But over the last seven days, events plunged to an appalling nadir, as word came through of the massacre of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in the fortress of Qala Jangi, just outside the Northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif.

We may never learn fully what went on in this blood-drenched place. What we can say for certain is that the scale of the massacre that occurred suggests that no real attempt was made to take prisoners, in the accepted protocol of war; also, that many of those killed by the Northern Alliance, with the direct assistance of special forces from the U.S. and the United Kingdom, died with their hands tied behind their backs; and finally, that the showdown that took place has all the hallmarks of a cold and calculated, bloody slaughter.

George Bush has spelled out the American view that anyone who was unwilling to provide tangible military assistance to the US-led, so-called, War On Terrorism was morally culpable, and would be dealt with accordingly when the dust had settled. Well, the same, surely, applies in reverse. Anyone – or any nation – that provided support for the war-mongering of the United States in the immediate aftermath of September 11th must now just as clearly stand indicted for the atrocities that have been committed in the name of the international coalition against terrorism in the interim.

That includes Ireland.

In the wake of the wholesale slaughter that took place in Mazar-I-Sharif, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for an inquiry into the killing of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in this benighted place. It was telling just how quickly the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, rejected the suggestion.

It smacked of the oldest kind of military evasion: atrocities are always wrong – unless of course they happen to be our atrocities, massacres carried out by forces that are either under our command or that are friendly to us. If the same kind of thing had been perpetrated by Serbian forces in the Balkan wars, those responsible, along with the politicians who had given succour and encouragement to the guilty local militia, would be dragged before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, to defend themselves. Why should it be any different in this instance? And why should either Jack Straw or George Bush for that matter, be immune?

Ireland's position in all of this is, frankly, shameful. My own guess is that we are hoping that we will be able to make all of the right kind of noises to appease our American friends – while at the same time having to do nothing that would demand real moral, political or military courage from us. So far, on the face of it, we might seem to be getting away with this brazenly hypocritical stance. However, the optics of it cannot withstand even the slightest bit of scrutiny.

We have acquiesced blithely – no, that's the wrong word – we have acquiesced cravenly in the cold-blooded murder of soldiers, in a way that almost certainly contravenes the Geneva Convention. We have bought into the absurd rhetoric of George Bush's discredited War On Terrorism. We have, to put it bluntly, abandoned any pretext of neutrality or morality, and we have acted like spineless wretches, unwilling or unable to take any kind of independent or considered line.

In this, we are not alone. But it is something that resounds with a particularly, and sickeningly, hollow note in the week that the Government has been attempting to push through legislation, in the Dáil, that will facilitate a referendum on the abortion issue here, in the spring of 2002.

How is it possible to square official bullshit about being pro-life with the willingness to accept wholesale slaughter in Afghanistan? If there was really any commitment to a pro-life ideology on the part of the Government, then they would be forthright in their condemnation of military excesses, no matter who the guilty parties might be. But, it is quite clear that this is not their real concern in relation to abortion. No, we are talking here about something that had been seen as a vote winner.

Well, now even those calculations seem to be coming undone – and a good thing it is too. Anyone with half a brain knows that the proposals which have been put forward, and which effectively decide that the morning-after pill is not an abortifacient, are an affront to Catholic teaching: that the Bishops and the conventional wing of the absurdly-named Pro-Life Movement seem to be willing to accept them is a signal of their ultimate hypocrisy.

But this is not the position of certain influential figures within the Church in Rome. Thus it was no surprise when Cardinal Truujillo announced recently that he anticipated that the Irish bishops would react against the referendum. Whether he is being prophetic or not remains to be seen. The point is that doctrinally, he is undoubtedly correct – even if the Irish bishops do decide to wimp out and endorse the Government's proposal.

Or could it be that the Bishops are actually accepting that it is alright to carry out an abortion procedure – whatever the nature of that procedure might be – after conception, but before the implantation of the embryo in the womb?

My own view is that exactly the opposite perspective makes far more sense. It is not right for the Government of Ireland to endorse the wholesale murder of either civilians or soldiers in Afghanistan. It is not right for them – on our behalf – to accept, or to acquiesce in, war crimes being carried out by the Northern Alliance, the US or the United Kingdom. This is where any genuine pro-life beliefs should be focussed right now.

And in relation to abortion – however difficult some people may find it to accept, it is and must remain a woman's right to choose whether or not to carry a child through to the completion of any pregnancy.

It is a stark perspective – but there are different ways in which the decision not to complete a pregnancy can be formalised by any woman. In the end, if the pregnancy has gone on too long, or if it seems to the woman that there is no other way, then the option of suicide exists. Contrary to popular perception, I believe that it is an honourable thing for any person to decide to end his or her own life – and if there happens to be an unborn child in the womb of the person who chooses to make that decision, it doesn't make it any less honourable,

But it should not be the case, that suicide is the only way. On the contrary, it is my belief that a woman must have the freedom to either accept or reject the necessity to carry a child for the nine months that it takes to go full-term. There are a thousand potential reasons why any particular woman, in whatever specific circumstances, might make that decision. The obvious hard cases that spring to mind involve rape or incest – either of which provides a context in which to demand that a woman carries through a pregnancy would be an act of the utmost callousness.

But there is no context in which it seems to me that it can be right to insist to any woman – “you must carry this pregnancy through, no matter what the effect of it is, or might be, on you psychologically or emotionally. And we are not prepared to accept the possibility that you might commit suicide as a basis for accepting that abortion is justified. To prove that to us, you will actually have to go ahead and kill yourself.”

This is what the Government is attempting to foist on us. This is what Liz O'Donnell and Mary Harney are complicit in. They, among all of the members of Government, cannot believe that this is right. They should disassociate themselves from this crazy referendum now. Lord knows they should! There is still time.