Cardinal Brady says abortion legislation ‘morally unacceptable’

The head of the Catholic church in Ireland has slammed the draft abortion legislation as “morally unacceptable”. Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents from within the church in Ireland to the provisions outlined in the Heads of the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill. He said that if passed, the Bill would permit the direct intentional killing of innocent life.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Six One News at the weekend, the Laragh native said the draft legislation deprived the most fundamental right of all, the right to life of the unborn child.
He said efforts to protect the life of a mother were to be commended, but questioned who speaks for the life of the child. In that case he added legislators had an obligation to oppose laws that attack something so fundamental as the right to life.
Cardinal Brady repeated his stance when speaking at the national vigil of prayer for mothers and their unborn babies in Knock shortly after, where he stated “the perception of the seriousness of abortion – has grown progressively obscured in the minds of many of our contemporaries.”
“We pray for courage - the kind of courage that is needed to look the truth in the eye and to call it as it is, without yielding to self-deception or bowing to convenient compromise, scrupulously avoiding ambiguous language which cloaks the true horror of the situation and reduces its seriousness in public”, Cardinal Brady said.
With Cardinal Brady as main celebrant, the vigil’s theme was ‘Choose Life: We Cherish Them Both’ and it was supported by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Last week bishops from this region, Bishop Leo O’Reilly of the Diocese of Kilmore, Bishop Colm O’Reilly, Ardagh and Clonmacnois, Bishop Michael Smith, Meath and Bishop Liam McDaid, Clogher joined others in opposing the proposed legislation as the direct and intentional killing of unborn children.
In a joint statement, they said the Bill appeared to impose a duty on Catholic hospitals to provide abortions. “This would be totally unacceptable and has serious implications for the existing legal and constitutional arrangements that respect the legitimate autonomy and religious ethos of faith-based institutions. It would also pose serious difficulties for the conscientious beliefs of many citizens.
“Abortion, in the sense of directly killing the unborn child, is never a remedy for suicidal ideation and therefore should never be cited as a justification for the direct killing of an innocent human being. It is a tragic moment for Irish society when we regard the deliberate destruction of a completely innocent person as an acceptable response to the threat of the preventable death of another person”, they said.