Jane: “I think it would be extremely cruel and very uncharitable to tell a woman who’d been told “your baby can’t survive birth by more than an hour” that if she has an abortion, she has “murdered her baby”. I hope you’d never do a cruel and uncharitable thing like that, regardless of how you think you would yourself feel if you were told that horrible news.”

As I read Jane’s words, I find it ironic that just an hour ago, I read Fr. Longenecker’s article about “Sugar Bullies”. Jane’s remarks in this comment, and in others, fully qualifies her for that rather ignoble description. My prayer this night is that she will see the error of her thinking. Killing a child just because a doctor gives bad news (doesn’t mean the doctor is infallible, as so many mother can attest), or because the father rapes the mother (killing the child for the sins of the father) is still murder.

Wasn’t Mr. Neeson contemplating becoming a Muslim? Perhaps if he hasn’t he should consider it.

Amnesty International used to be an authentic advocate for human rights but has taken a wrong turn.
Mothers and their children are both victimized by abortion.

mrscrackerlo -

“Human rights aren’t politics.”

I’m sure opponents of the restrictive abortion laws in Ireland would whole-heartedly agree with you. However, they see the human rights of women being violated. Thus we have a conflict, and so it has entered into the realm of politics.

Shame on Liam!  I admired him so much in Schindlers List, a movie about saving linnocent lives.  And now he’s advocating destroying unborn innocent lives!  How ironic.  But I guess we need to remember that “Hollywood actors know best” what’s good for a country and its people.

Human rights aren’t politics.

Tom Sonham, it’s pretty hard to argue that this ad doesn’t demonize the Church.  That’s probably considered fair play in today’s brand of politics, but that is what’s going on.

During the last century, the Catholic Church had immeasurable influence and power in Irish politics and society. This ad is simply saying that such influence was behind laws believed to be hurting women (the Church was instrumental in passing the 8th Amendment), and in the realm of politics and legislation, it is time to shrug off that influence, and move in what is believed to forward-looking direction.

You can disagree with this. You can present your views. You can criticize the organizations with whom you disagree. That’s politics. And that is what we have here in this ad. The Church can be politically active if it wishes, but it is not entitled to special privileges in the political arena, and is subject to criticism like anybody else.

In this ad, there is no slander. There is no grotesque distortion of Catholic teaching. No vicious caricatures. No anti-Catholicism. Just politics.

Jane Carnell, lets play a word game with what you said:
As many Catholics have noted to me, the blanket condemnation of all holocausts and of every Nazi who decides they need to kill Jews, renders Catholicism an inflexible religion, incapable of allowing for individual conscience, individual circumstances, individual lives.
Hopefully the Catholics who support this cruel condemnation of Nazis involved in the Holocaust, will repent and join the Nazi majority before it’s too late.

6 million killed in the German holocaust, 53 million killed in the US abortion holocaust.

It’s ironic that the same forces lobbying for aborting Irish children are the same who lobby to lower the age of consent.

I would strongly suggest that the author review both his article and the video.

I do not think for one second that the add is anti-catholic.

Nor do I think that Europe was built on the back of the Catholic Church, and indeed history would strongly argue that in times past (and even present) the church did immense damage to the evolution of Europe and to the poor and mistreated of Europe.

The Catholic Church may preach love and treating others as you would wish to be treated but has demonstrated over and over through history and to current times that the core values of the church was and is the protection of the institution of the church not the protection of the poor.

And as for the ridiculous attempt to link pro-abortion and secularism !!!! Pathetic.

Tom Sonham said,

It’s very typical of Matt Archbold to misconstrue the facts. This in no anti-Catholic rant.

 
The narration and text at the end of the ad regards a specific amendment to Ireland’s Constitution, but the imagery is not of that, nor is it of what led to the statute that outlawed abortion in Ireland in the first place (which would have been images of scientists or doctors at work).  Since the imagery has nothing to do with the issue yet is obviously about the Catholic/Christian church and is presented in a negative or somber tone, it is certainly anti-Catholic or at least anti-Christian.

Human rights isn’t politics and authentic human rights don’t discriminate by age or stage of development. Amnesty International has lost its way.

It’s very typical of Matt Archbold to misconstrue the facts. This in no anti-Catholic rant. The Catholic Church is very vocal in Irish politics. That’s fine, of course, and well within their rights. However, as this is politics, the opposition will fight back, so don’t whine when somebody bloodies your nose.

eddie too ,
He’s not the only one in Hollywood.
I pretty much just check out movies from the library & occasionally, Red Box these days. I think the cable may be cut next month, too. I’m tired of funding an industry that promotes discrimination & death.

if liam neeson is going to use his wealth and fame to attack and try to destroy the catholic church, I will not be complicit in his earning more money be attending his movies.

r o’connor ,
Caring for terminally ill children is painful, too but what solution would you offer their mothers? Perhaps we’ll be watching a video promoting child euthanasia in the not too distant future. I think that’s already an option in Belgium.

aborting children kills far more female human beings than just about anything else.

it is such a lie to speak of allowing the legal killing of young girls as being pro-woman.

r’oconnor, some people, such as the young man in this video, would defend the killing of a 2-year-old or even a 5-year-old for the same reasons you claim that abortion should be permitted, which is at least logically consistent, if (at least from my perspective) horrendous.  Perhaps if you simply moved the troubling circumstance to a point beyond birth, we could have a more rational discussion about how we should permit it to be dealt with while avoiding the confused baggage about life before birth that some people continue to harbor.

Liam takes the catholic church to task for it’s anti-womanism. Seems to me he hits the target right on. Forcing women to undergo the emotional, and possibly physical, pain of carrying a dead or soon to be dead fetus to term is sadistic.  And of course the main proponents of it are men, like Matthew Archbold, who will never know how hard it is to make the decision to abort.

The Pope said priests should forgive women for having an abortion. I think women should have told the pope to go jump in a lake. They don’t need forgiveness because they haven’t done anything wrong.

Liam Neeson evokes a dim-witted view of life, advocating death as a reasonable alternative treatment for the innocent. One cannot compromise with such a philosophy. Bishops need to excommunicate these forlorn wretched folk who are unhappy with basic, but profound, Church teachings. Let’s carry on with the remnant.

Posted by JD on Wednesday, Oct 21, 2015 10:55 AM (EDT):

By the way, the video seems to be advocating elimination of the Catholic church. “
******************
Sure. The Church & the family are the last remaining obstacles to an all powerful state.
Amnesty International I believe was founded by a Catholic convert. It’s all tragic considering what Ireland has suffered over the centuries. What the British failed to accomplish, secularism has succeeded in.

The video claims that Ireland’s 8th Amendment was “written for a different time.”  So what is it about the knowledge that led Ireland to outlaw abortion in the first place (which happened in 1861) that has changed?

By the way, the video seems to be advocating elimination of the Catholic church.  The very end transitions from a dreary gray shot of an abandoned church to a bright, sunny, blue sky, green grass visual without a trace of a church (or cross).

It’s always strange to see someone frequent a site with which they disagree so much (e.g., “Jane Carnall”).  I understand the attempt to learn about the other side of an issue, but to hang out and pick fights shows there is another agenda at work.  Such folks are intent on attacking others because of their beliefs without attempting to understand or listen or learn.

Steven Barrett ,
I’d say it’s a fatal mistake Mr Neeson’s made and a terribly sad thing facing Irish society.
I pray for Ireland every day.

Kevin,
Keep looking. But have a good day and don’t knock yourself out looking. More important things in the world than what mistakes an irish actor makes now n’ then.

Steven Barrett, that’s all well and fine - I’m certainly frustrated myself by politicians who wear the pro-life moniker but don’t try to do anything about it or worse fail to honestly practice it - but I don’t see the target of your ire in this column or among those who’ve commented on it.

@Kevin Rahe,
The mere fact I didn’t mention euthanasia and assisted suicide ... what the hell’s the difference, an extra pair of hands? ... doesn’t mean I support either one. And I agree with you that there are many fine people working quietly or “below the radar” so to speak to promote genuine prolife activities. The ire I was expressing was directed at the political phonies who use the very words “pro-life” like they use “family values” all the while they’re cheating on their spouses, or in the case of TN Congressman DeJarlais, managed to procure the abortions of both his hussy and wife and still get elected and reelected to Congress twice in the past two Congressional elections. The first time he was backed by the Susan B. Anthony organization. (Thankfully they caught on to this rogue pol’s real act in time to save their money. Unfortunately their first round of support put this guy into office where no thanks to successful GOP gerrymandering tactics and Citizens United, guys like him are almost impossible to get rid of. Oh, but isn’t this guy a real dandy standardbearer for “prolife” and “family values”? Or for that matter his bookend GOP colleague Stephen Fincher (R-Frog Jump) who’s never turned down a chance to line his own pockets with Food Subsidies all the while voting to cut SNAP and Meals on Wheels (for the elderly). Then he had the nerve to go on the House Floor to defend his actions and cited the Bible in the process. What great “prolifers” these two are. They represent the wealthy, are bankrolled by the wealthy and practically jump whenever the wealthy tell ‘em to jump, especially when it comes to working over the weakest and “littlest” among us just to the wealthy can, like the pharisees of Jesus’ time add more weight to the poor’s burden so their tax burdens (as if they, the wealthy, really felt so much a pinch) would be lighter and be of more help to the “job creators” who seem to be doing a fine job of that for overseas job hunters.
  If the so-called prolife movement in this country wants to point fingers, fine. But remember that others have fingers to point to where their blindness has in turn done more to actually make the abortion industry’s job of enticing more young and frightened women into their abortuaries, not to mention people conning the terminally ill and terribly lonely abandoned elderly into ending their lives because younger generations have put a doggone dollar sign above what the Lord has already deemed them to be, His children, no matter how young and relatively strong or old and relatively weak.
  I’m all for a free market, economic advancement and better living conditions; but not at the price of selling our souls and telling the rest of the world how “prolife” and “profamily” we are when in fact we as a nation are so enslavled to the dollar.

I washed my hands of Ireland 20+ years ago when they legalized divorced and contraception and sold their souls to the EU. Ireland appears to be in a foot race with the rest of Europe to see who can reach the gates of hell first.

As for Liam Neeson…I will never watch any of movies again including his upcoming one in which he plays a Jesuit Missionary in 16th century Japan. I guess by voicing his admiration for the Muslim call to prayer and now support of abortion in Ireland he become a full fledged member of the Culture of Death.

Shame on those abortionists and people of that ilk who believe the murder of babies is what modernity should be about.
I wonder if the ‘techies’ and their ‘money’ and ‘donations’ are funding this latest horror!
Will certain politicians get what they want from the moneyed elite if the murder of babies is allowed?

Steven Barrett said,

Just so long as we haven’t fallen into the catagory of prolifers who, as Barney Frank famously quipped years ago, “who are prolife from the moment of conception till the moment of birth”

 
Most pro-life organizations fight euthanasia and assisted suicide as vigorously as they fight abortion.  It’s just that those battles are fewer and farther between than battles against abortion, though in both respects they are on the increase.  As for me personally, far more of my charitable contributions and volunteer hours go to help those who are already born than those not yet born.  I’m sure you’d find that most other pro-lifers contribute their time, talent and treasure similarly.  You need a new canard.

Jane Carnall, I have to admire the inner bullfighter working on your behalf. You need one to keep posting some of the posts you’ve left on this thread in particular. In your case Jane, you’re fighting two kinds of bull, one on four legs, the other we have to avoid stepping in. Just so long as we haven’t fallen into the catagory of prolifers who, as Barney Frank famously quipped years ago, “who are prolife from the moment of conception till the moment of birth” we can still hold our heads up knowing we’re not marching in locked arms with the “I’ve got mine, get lost” crowd that’s taking over the one-time more truly progressive and humanely inspired prolife movement. Todays’s bunch are just cheap followers of the latest Tea Party talking points. Never mind that these talking points do a wonderful job of contradicting Church teachings on social and economic justice. Ah, what do they care. If Fox disses it, even the Pope’s got to be in line for some “accountability” sessions when it comes to economics, social justice and bringing new life into the world.
  Jane, you are a most valiant and fresh voice. Keep it up, friend. BTW, ever notice that they can never point to us and say, “See, see see ... these guys believe in abortion.”  Nope, not quite. We believe in consistency that helps to avoid nudging more ever so-concerned “prolife” parents who so often and ever so quietly and discretely “counsel” the very confused, scared and very pregnant young gals in their families and immediate friendship circles to “do the sensible thing.” And this happened in many good Irish Catholic families on this side of the Atlantic, esp. since 1972.

I will never watch another Liam Neeson movie, he is dead to me.  How can anyone support the murder of an innocent baby?  The land of saints and scholars,  already the land of sinners and sodomites is now to become the land of murderers, God forgive them, the Ireland of my youth is being extinguished before my eyes,  I do not recognize this land any longer..

Neeson played the role of Alfred Kinsey with gusto back in 2004. No self-respecting Catholic should have played this part that was so positive to the memory of one of the architects of the sexual revolution. He sets off my Mason-radar.

The Irish Constitution was/is a beautiful document, but it has been eroded over time by evil amendments, most recently the 34th which requires the Irish state to provide for same-sex marriage. It was really too good to be true - in the sense of being able to endure in this fallen world.

I’m actually more annoyed with Irish prelates and Association of Catholic Priests-type clerics these days. Now is the time to come out all guns blazing and these wimps are contorting themselves into pretzels trying not to offend unrepentant evil-doers - mainly by saying nothing.

According to the Catholic Catechism, it is a mortal sin against the 5th Commandment to discriminate against anyone because of their religion,  color or ethnicity.  And it is “particularly so to join an organization that supports and promotes it.”  There is no exonerating condition, either, that exempts you.

Tell me, why is it not a mortal sin against the 5th Commandment for “joining,” with your name endorsement and actions, an organization that supports and promotes the murder of innocent unborn human babies, such as the Democrat Party?  Catholics are the largest single group in the Democrat Party giving it the elector power to keep the murder of unborn babies legal.

I want to sent my sympathies to the Catholic Church in Ireland, because we have just heard that they want to lay to rest the Ghost the has keep Ireland down. Thanks to Liam Neeson we can do just that. The Church in Ireland has Died and we better lay it to rest before it is forgotten about. Oh that has already happened. Or just maybe it is up to you to make a stand for life which is so precious. To rethink what your faith means to you and to see that we are all called to protect human life from natural conception to natural death. If you are Catholic then this is your call.

As a Celtics fan, I now rest all grudges against that stern Marine Base Commander of Gitmo. We need more than a few men like this stalwart Lakers fan who never ceases to get in the faces of a lot of Celts’ fans faces in the Boston Garden, no less. Now if we can get him to do likewise more often in Hollywood, but not quite using his “Whitey Bulger” touch, you just never know. Interesting article. Disappointing about Neeson because I do respect his acting talents. Let’s try taking the best of those whose activities on the other side, and use them to persuade them how much more respected, not more popular, they can become with the public. They have all the popularity they need. But no actor can have enough respect. None of ‘em because it’s so easy to lose no thanks to one “bad night on the town,” backing an unsavory cause, or treating people on the set like dirt. And oh yes, demand outrageous salaries and blow the bucks on palaces fit only for Russian oligharchs. Pray for Neeson. (Yeah, and for Jack, too ... so that one day when he films another flic in Beantown that he’ll see the light and start rooting for THE Greatest Franchise in Basketball History.

Liam Neeson was raised Catholic but has been at best a lukewarm Catholic his entire life.
Now Hollywood has turned him into just another anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-homo “marriage” bigot of the first degree.  Last I heard heard “catholic” Neeson was thinking about becoming a muslim because he liked the daily “prayer chants” from muslims.

So Jane, your saying it’s “charitable” to kill your child? Wow, that’s pretty unbelievable. If the child is going to die, why kill him or her? Let the baby die naturally. If abortion isn’t murder, what is it? You are killing a living human being. That is murder.

Another reason why the audience needs to separate actors/characters from their real-life counterparts.

I liked Errol Flynn’s heroics on screen, but his off-screen antics left much to be desired.

Since I converted to Catholicism several years ago, I’ve been more aware of the overt anti-Christian, anti-Catholicism which runs rampant throughout television and the movies.

If only more actors/actresses/singers/celebrities would have the guts to voice their opposition to abortion, we might have a more even playing field on reaching people in Ireland and across the world.

A short list of pro-lifers in the entertainment business:

Jim Caviezel
Jack Nicholson
Eduardo Verastegui
Jon Voight
Kenny Chesney
Phil Robertson
Kathy Ireland
Martin Sheen
Kirk Cameron
Patricia Heaton
Kevin James
James Earl Jones
Andrea Bocelli
Chuck Norris
Justin Bieber

Jane, while the Church doesn’t issue guidelines about the moral licitness of specific medical procedures - it merely has moral guidelines for how a woman and her unborn baby must be treated - a salpingectomy is considered morally licit by many Catholic theologians, and doesn’t necessarily have the result of a loss or reduction in fertility.  There is a very good discussion of all this here.
 
But the discussion of how to address tragic situations that may threaten a woman’s health or life in a morally licit manner is a world away from what the ad that is the subject of this column is advocating, and even the case being used to support that initiative.

Well, this has been interesting, but I can’t think of how to respond to Richard M’s comment describing me as a “cold-blooded killer” in any way that is thoughtful, respectful, or has charity, as the comments policy requires of me. Thanks for this illuminating discussion.

Richard M - Agreed!  That’s why we need to keep fighting the good fight and stand up for what the babies can’t do for themselves, and the elderly now, too. Praying for her and others like her is about the best we can do at this time.

“My understanding is that errors were made in diagnosing and monitoring her condition, which led to treatment that was too little and too late.  The hospital was culpable in her death, but not because it followed the Church’s teaching.”
****************
My understanding, too. Healthcare in Ireland & the UK overall is good, but if you follow the BBC & other news sources, troubles do occur from time to time. Up until fairly recently, Ireland was a very poor, struggling country. Some services are still playing catch up.

In Jane Carnall’s comments, I hear nothing but the voice of a cold blooded killer, couched in soothing therapeutic tones. But a killer, nonetheless.

Dave: I always appreciate thoughts with good intentions behind them. I’m sorry that I can’t feel certain of the good intentions of some people on this thread.
mrs crackers: I think that denying abortion is discriminating against the very young & most vulnerable girls who have been raped and made pregnant. I am sorry that you feel no concern for those girls.
Alana: I’ve never needed to have an abortion. Nor, as far as I know, has my sister. I’ve always trusted and respected the good judgement and sound conscience of my friends. Don’t you?

Dave!  I am not the Jane you are referring to, but I agree with you 100%!!  We all need to pray for the other Jane and people who feel the same.  The babies have no choice, and it is their tiny bodies, not the woman’s/mother’s at all.  The mother should have the common sense to know that if she has sex, a baby can result.  Of course, in cases of rape, it is not her fault, BUT what ever happened to adoption?  There are so many wonderful couples out there (my son and his wife one of them) who so would love a baby, but there are none as abortion is the “law of the land”.  Shame on us!

I think that removing Savita Halappanavar’s uterus when all she needed was an abortion to terminate the prolonged miscarriage that ultimately killed her, would have been rather a drastic response, and furthermore, left her infertile, when performing an abortion would have saved her life and let her and her husband have more children in future. Certainly I’m sure she and her family and loved ones would rather have her alive minus her uterus than, as actually happened, dead: but in any other country in the world, the doctors wouldn’t have had to make that decision. A miscarriage at 17 weeks means the foetus won’t survive. The hospital’s choice was whether or not to save Savita’s life, and sadly, they decided to let her die rather than perform an abortion.

I think that removing a Fallopian tube instead of first of all providing abortifacients to remove the embryo rather than the tube, would be an unnecessary mutilation. I’m sorry if this is standard treatment in some Catholic hospitals; it means women are losing half their fertility for no good reason.

It’s going down a comment box rabbit hole, but if all lives matter, we should take the broader view. Not a narrow one that discriminates against the very young & most vulnerable.

Jane, a Catholic hospital can indeed treat any condition that threatens a pregnant woman’s life, even if that treatment involves the undesired and unintended but unavoidable death of her unborn baby, such as the removal of her uterus or a fallopian tube that threatens to burst because of a pregnancy.  If a Catholic hospital’s administration does not understand this, that is unfortunate, but then problem in that case is that the Church hasn’t properly communicated her teaching, not that that teaching must change.

Jane: I think I can speak for everyone here in saying that we shall pray for you.

Jane Carnall said,

it would be extremely cruel and very uncharitable to tell a woman who’d been told “your baby can’t survive birth by more than an hour” that if she has an abortion, she has “murdered her baby”

 
It’s a sad but unavoidable fact to anyone who has gone to school past the 5th grade.  Even the U.S. Supreme Court couldn’t say that abortion is not a contract killing.  All it could do was avoid the question by conflating ancient ignorance with modern medical knowledge and thereby claim a lack of “consensus” on the matter of when a human life begins.
 
Saying that to someone’s face is of course another matter, especially if done uncharitably.  But it is the elephant in the room that we all know is there, even if we don’t like to talk about it.
 

we found in the case of Savita Halappanavar that this is not true: she needed life-saving treatment, an abortion, and she died because this was withheld from her

 
My understanding is that errors were made in diagnosing and monitoring her condition, which led to treatment that was too little and too late.  The hospital was culpable in her death, but not because it followed the Church’s teaching.

Jane Carnall, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen might have said: Why did you (or your friend, or your sister) abort your baby? Guilt blinds us to truth. I pray that you will find forgiveness and healing.

Kevin; “But even a Catholic hospital acting in full accord with Church teaching will not refuse life-saving treatment to a pregnant woman, even if that treatment involves the undesired but unavoidable death of her unborn child.”

Sadly, we found in the case of Savita Halappanavar that this is not true: she needed life-saving treatment, an abortion, and she died because this was withheld from her. Letting her die was justified to her face because, a nurse told her, “this is a Catholic country”. The Act which followed this tragic death, to allow doctors to perform abortions to save women’s lives, was attacked, as I recall, by all of the Catholic Archbishops in Ireland. So I have no idea where you get the idea that a Catholic hospital acting in full accord with Church teaching can perform an abortion to save a woman’s life: it doesn’t appear to be true.

(Years earlier, and in another country, a life-saving abortion performed in an Arizona hospital saved the mother-of-four’s life - and got the hospital stripped of its Catholic status by Bishop Thomas Olmstead of the Diocese of Phoenix.)

Lorelei: I think it would be extremely cruel and very uncharitable to tell a woman who’d been told “your baby can’t survive birth by more than an hour” that if she has an abortion, she has “murdered her baby”. I hope you’d never do a cruel and uncharitable thing like that, regardless of how you think you would yourself feel if you were told that horrible news.

Jane Carnall said,

If a life has infinite value, how can you justify supporting denial of abortion to girls and women who will die if forced to continue pregnancy? Why would it be morally better to have a dead pregnant girl or dead pregnant woman, than to have a living girl or living woman?

 
Again, that has nothing to do with the point being argued regarding the Linehams.  But even a Catholic hospital acting in full accord with Church teaching will not refuse life-saving treatment to a pregnant woman, even if that treatment involves the undesired but unavoidable death of her unborn child.

Jane, isn’t it torture to know that you murdered your baby? I would rather my baby live for one hour in love, than die a horrible death before birth. Why is it better to kill the baby before birth than to let him or her die naturally? How can a mother think that is best for her or the baby?

Jane Carnall said,

you were justifying emotionlessly consigning a pregnant woman who has just learned her baby will die within the hour of birth

 
No one can “learn” something that hasn’t happened as if they could learn a fact.  All they can know is the probability that something will happen.  No one can say that her baby would have absolutely died, as we see with the case I posted a link to earlier.
 

“rationally” you feel that torturing a pregnant woman for thirty weeks is the right thing to do

 
No.  Rationally I think that finding value in the lives of tens of millions of healthy born and unborn people and a few unhealthy ones is the right thing to do.  Permitting a woman in Mrs. Lineham’s position to abort her baby would require me to give up that idea.

But mrscracker, if a woman *chooses* to continue her pregnancy knowing the risk that her baby may not survive long after birth, that is one thing: to force a woman through pregnancy against her will is another. Women have conscience, reason, and judgement. To insist that it is anti-Catholic to support and trust a woman’s conscience, reason, and judgement, seems very strange to me - and most if not all Catholic women I know wouldn’t agree with that.
If a life has infinite value, how can you justify supporting denial of abortion to girls and women who will die if forced to continue pregnancy? Why would it be morally better to have a dead pregnant girl or dead pregnant woman, than to have a living girl or living woman?

Slouching toward, I think you mean…

I personally know two mothers who have delivered babies who were predicted to only survive minutes after birth-if that. Both mothers(& their husbands) were blessed to be able to hold their child, have it baptized, & take photos before it passed away. One mother had several other living children who were able to see & hold their sibling, too.
To not have that experience would be tragic. Every life has infinite value & that worth is not judged by length.
Abortion always has at least 2 victims. We should be focusing on that, not the narrow view.

Kevin: I didn’t say *you* were emotionless. I said you were justifying emotionlessly consigning a pregnant woman who has just learned her baby will die within the hour of birth, to thirty weeks of torture, because “rationally” you feel that torturing a pregnant woman for thirty weeks is the right thing to do. I think that’s an atrocity, no matter how you rationally justify it.

I am not emotionless.  I simply don’t let my emotions override reason.  I certainly feel for people in the position the Linehams were in - indeed there have been some among my own acquaintances.  But as difficult to bear as those tragedies are, they are not worse than the alternative.

Kevin: Because I think that emotionlessly consigning a pregnant woman to thirty weeks of torture, for the sake of an emotionless moral position that appears to accomplish nothing either charitable nor loving, is itself an atrocity.

Jane Carnall said,

I also think your reaction to Helen Linehan - and other women in Ireland this has happened to - is heartless. To force a woman through 30 weeks of pregnancy to bear a baby who will die within the hour, to force her to do that against her will and against her better judgement - I see this as nothing but cruelty.

 
And I see your position as being based on nothing but emotion.  Great atrocities have been committed throughout history when people acted on emotion in ways that couldn’t pass reason.  How do you know you don’t advocate one now?

The root of the problem is people separating themselves from God or pretending that He doesn’t exist.  Once God is out of the picture, there is no reason to keep anyone around who is in pain, imperfect or even merely unwanted, whether born or unborn.  At least those who advocate euthanasia and assisted suicide in addition to abortion, for any reason, are being consistent, unlike those who just pick on the unborn.

Mrscracker: I think that reaction to little girls dying because they’ve been raped and made pregnant is heartless and inhuman. I’m sorry: I seriously do. Girls deserve to live to grow up. Each human life is precious: forced use of a girl’s body to make a baby is fundamentally wrong. A girl made pregnant, especially against her will, deserves to be able to have an abortion.

Kevin Rahe: I also think your reaction to Helen Linehan - and other women in Ireland this has happened to - is heartless. To force a woman through 30 weeks of pregnancy to bear a baby who will die within the hour, to force her to do that against her will and against her better judgement - I see this as nothing but cruelty.

Joann: I’m sorry: I don’t see forced use of someone else’s body against their will as a human right at all, especially not when the forced use is that of a child who deserves to grow up happy, healthy, and strong. I see it as a human right to be able to decide for yourself what use to make of your own body, not to have it forced from you against your will.

Now I seem to have been going on at length! Thanks for your respectful consideration.

Ireland is indeed the devil’s new play ground. It is not a huge leap from support for homosexual marriage to support for abortion rights. With the cry for a decentralized synodal chuch it is no stretch to imagine that Ireland will soon become just another formerly Catholic country.

Another actor who I will not go to see in the movies….Kelsey Grammer is one who I wish was in more movies.  We cannot continue to support this evil in any form; stores, companies, products, and even actors and supposed singers (Madonna).  We must be educated and knowledgeable about who is trying to ruin the One True Church of Jesus Christ, and we, as faithful Catholics, must do what we can in our own small way. Thank you for educating us on this actor and what is going on.

Jane Carnall said,

Abortion saves lives.

 
Every abortion takes a life.  That is an inescapable fact.  You take the position that some of them also save a life.  The first fact to consider, then, is that when a pregnant woman’s health or life is threatened, whether by something natural or unnatural, there are two (or more) lives at stake.
 
But that is not at all relevant in the case of Helen and Graham Lineham, who never make the claim that Helen’s pregnancy endangered her life or even her health, and whose baby may have been just like this one:  Baby born without a complete skull defies the odds.
 
Do you have a case that is more convincing as regards your position?

I expect that abortion is the leading cause of death for developing girls in the womb, worldwide. That’s a cruelty that should be ended.

Jane Charnall - The most basic human right is abortion? I thought the most basic human right was the right to life. The babies who are aborted have been denied their human rights. Without the right to life all other human rights are meaningless. You cannot have human rights if there are no humans. How is killing babies a human right? How is ripping children out of their mother’s wombs a human right? What about the human rights of these humans?

Pregnancy is a leading cause of death for teenage girls worldwide. I’m glad your great-grandmother survived the birth of 9 children starting from when she was 12 years old - but many children then and now don’t survive pregnancy imposed on them too young: for many children, being forced through pregnancy and childbirth can mean, if not a death sentence, permanent damage to their health and wellbeing.

Abortion saves lives. Having safe legal abortion available in Ireland would not only save the lives of women really too ill to travel - but also ensure that the thousands of women who leave Ireland every year to have safe legal abortions overseas, would be able to have their abortion safely close to home with their friends and family to support them.

I thought the point Helen and Graham Lineham made in their interview,  that had Helen been living in Ireland at the time she was pregnant, she would have been treated as a criminal for terminating her much-wanted pregnancy - because of a “morality” that says she should be forced through pregnancy to the very end to bear a baby that will not live one hour. How is this cruelty pro “life”?

What a shame ... first Bill Nye, now Liam Neeson comes out as a baby killer.  You’re making me wonder if the characters I’ve come to know and love on TV and in movies aren’t actually real ...

Kevin Rahe,
I think possibly the comment referring to children might mean pregnant, underage girls. Of course, that’s ignoring the fact that many of our ancestors married as young teens. One of my great grandmothers married at 12 & raised 9 children. All survived to live successful & rewarding lives.

Jane Carnall said,

Hopefully the Catholics who support this cruel condemnation of women and children to injury and death, will repent and join the prochoice majority before it’s too late.

 
Things have truly inverted if it’s avoidance of abortion that causes “children[‘s]... injury and death” rather than abortion itself.
 
Let’s start by being honest about what abortion is.  Only then can we have a rational discussion about when it should be permitted.  The ball is in your court.

Religions that pander to popular culture & change their teachings accordingly do not challenge nor inspire & become irrelevant over time. That’s what’s happened to most mainline Protestant denominations.

As many Catholics have noted to me, the blanket condemnation of all abortions and of every woman who decides she needs to have an abortion, renders Catholicism an inflexible religion, incapable of allowing for individual conscience, individual circumstances, individual lives.

Hopefully the Catholics who support this cruel condemnation of women and children to injury and death, will repent and join the prochoice majority before it’s too late.

Jane Carnall:
Only self identified catholics who would be presently considered as heretics support abortion, murder of the defenseless unborn.
Hopefully these people will repent before their time to do so is finished.
St. John the Baptist, Pray for Us.

Liam Neeson is a Catholic.

Many Catholics support women having access to the basic human right of abortion.

Liam Neeson is actually from the North of Ireland,  not the Republic . These days,  Northern Ireland is at heart more conservative on abortion and other issues than the southern counties are.
The whole thing is very sad to see.
There is a good article on the UK Catholic Herald site about how amnesty international has lost its way.

Dear Mr. Neeson, What happened to your integrity? You wanted to save the horses in Central Park, but now you use your voice of blood to encourage the slaughter of countless innocent lives; so sad.