Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is considerable irony in the fact that in recent days there were fears about the future of the national maternity hospital expressed by people whose main concern seems to be that it might not actually provide abortion. I find it perfectly understandable, however, given the dominant cultural attitude in the State, that people would want a national maternity hospital that provides services completely free from any Christian or other religious influence. That is where many people are at and it is the main attitude of the State. The way to achieve what the State wants is through compulsory purchase of the site from the Religious Sisters of Charity or from whomever they have left in charge or to establish the national maternity hospital elsewhere. The notion that the religious or the people they have put in charge of the campus might seek to exercise a restraining influence on the worst excesses of the new secular ethos is really illusory. People like Dr. Peter Boylan and various Members of the Houses have stoked these fears. They have referred to things such as abortions and gender reassignment surgeries that might not take place. As I see it, the real tragedy is that the sisters, or those to whom they have entrusted their business, have put us in a situation where something as grotesque as late-term abortion could in the future be carried out under the nominal patronage of St. Vincent. We would be bad enough to gift the site to the people of Ireland for such purposes, but it would be just as bad - perhaps worse - that those procedures would go on under the nominal patronage of St. Vincent.

The repeated insulting of religious-inspired healthcare has not been challenged but it needs to be. It was the Religious Sisters of Charity who established the first women's hospital. It is the religious ethos that many people look to, people of faith and people of no faith, to have both excellence in medicine and also an ethical approach. Dr. Boylan mentioned abortion and gender reassignment surgery in recent days. When we consider what has gone on in other jurisdictions under these headings, and how people's lives have been ruined in some cases, we are reminded that some doctors are just glorified mechanics, highly skilled technical people who can cure one or kill one, depending on what the law provides and where the money trail leads. This is where some medical professionals are at.Many people see a value in having diversity in healthcare and that there would be at least one maternity hospital in this country where, for example, people with a conscientious objection could train. They could pursue excellence without necessarily providing procedures that many consider ethical or controversial. In a pluralist society, the third of the people who voted against abortion and the many others who might have concerns about ethos-free medicine should be entitled to that option on the menu of health provision in this State.