CONTRACEPTION IN GOD'S GREEN ISLE?
Cooney, John
response pivoted on the admonition of the 1971 Synod of Bishops that all members of the Church be prophetic in championing the rights of individuals and groups that are treated unjustly, and...
...If the Republic wished to help in a solution to the violence in the North and wished to evolve a form of partnership with the North, it must accept the principle of pluralism and alter its laws so that they would not discriminate against anyone of different persuasion, the argument runs...
...With the success of the coalition government, hopes were raised that the laws governing contraception would be altered...
...An important factor in this was the national debate about relations with Northern Ireland...
...It may in fact be defeated as a result of the fear of politicians of grass-roots country opinion that remains staunchly in favor of Humanae Vitae...
...But then, naturally, the question arose whether, if this is so, fanaticism was not a virtue...
...response pivoted on the admonition of the 1971 Synod of Bishops that all members of the Church be prophetic in championing the rights of individuals and groups that are treated unjustly, and cited the Synod reminder that "the Christian finds in every man God himself and God's absolute demand for justice and love...
...To defend the rights of homosexuals is merely to align one's self on the side of social prerogatives that all should have, homosexual or not, as individuals...
...Despite Humanae Vitae there has been growing demand in the Republic for the legalization of contraceptives...
...9 0 9 0 Q 9 9 0 9 O0 9 00 REPORT FROM BRITAIN THE OBLD AS A CONCENTBA TION CAICIP...
...Robinson...
...Patrick Cooney, announced that he intended to introduce legislation to bring the law into line with the Court's ruling...
...In retrospect, it can be seen that for many Catholics this episcopal statement was the signal for defensive action to save the country from the contamination of the permissive society...
...Quietly, various groups launched a letter campaign in which signatures were canvassed and sent to politicians to show them the grass-roots opposition to change...
...At the moment there is little indication that the bill will be amended in the direction sought by Mrs...
...A mother of four who lives in a mobile home, Mrs...
...A few weeks ago I was at a conference of philosophers and literary critics, and the conversation over the dinner table where I was sitting turned to the question whether the people most likely to survive conditions of imprisonment or torture were fanatical believers in some kind of cause...
...This law is backed up by various Censorship of Publications Acts preventing the advertising of contraceptives...
...This feeling of national progress was heightened in February, 1973, with the election of the National Coalition Government on a social reform program: Whatever the basic truth in the theory of progress, in recent months the Irish Government has been in disarray over a packet of durex...
...Robinson, who is a Professor of law at Dublin's Trinity College, said, "I think it will to some extent make us the laughing stock Of Europe in its present form...
...Is the world we are living in more like a conference room or a concentration camp...
...The main aim of the bill was to take the question of contraception out of the criminal arena and place it within welfare...
...And the empiricist or the positivistic philosopher may well at this point use what may be Commonweal: 277...
...Unmarried tourists visiting Ireland and either importing contraceptives or purchasing them in Ireland would be in contravention of the regulations...
...In his book The Irish Donald Connery examines the universally accepted image of the "typical Irishman"the gay, drunken, joking, story-telling, illogical figure of fun that is the basic diet of any bad "Irish" theatrical...
...In its judgment the Supreme Court stated that those parts of the Irish law were unconstitutional which forbade citizens to import contraceptives for their own personal use...
...If these laws were widely accepted in the thirties, they have clearly become anomalous today...
...Commenting on the government bill, Mrs...
...It is even arguable that here is a strictly unanswerable, because ill-formed, question: a question that it is not worth discussing until it is more precisely put...
...But then he adds: "The trouble is that every time I am solemnly told in Ireland that the stage Irishman does not exist, I meet one the next day...
...Whether the cause is a rational one or a piece of nonsense, it seemed to be agreed that a certain degree of fanatical adherence 'through thick and thin' was the best recipe for survival in the world of the concentration camp...
...Polish nationalists under Hitler, Jehovah's Witnesses under Franco were cited in evidence...
...This bill was duly published but it clearly was a narrow construction of the Supreme Court ruling...
...A position favoring the civil rights of homosexuals may require a certain courage, particularly since there are those who mistakenly equate a defense of those rights with an oblique sanctioning of homosexual sex as an alternative form of sexual expression--another issue entirely, as was demonstrated at the recent convention of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, which endorsed the civil rights of homosexuals but quashed a report on ministry that appeared to presume that homosexuality was natural and therefore good...
...This trend was supported by a Supreme Court decision in December on the appeal by a Mrs...
...For example, doctors estimate that 35,000 women are receiving the pill on prescription each month for medical reasons...
...At present a 1935 law forbids the importation, manufacture and sale of contraceptives...
...Noel Browne's mother-and-child welfare plan, the bishops in their 1973 statement acknowledged that it was the right of the legislature to legislate...
...The bill, which at the time of writing is before the Dail, the lower chamber, permits only married people to have access to contraceptives...
...This quality of life would be damaged by the "contraceptive mentality" which in England, the bishops claimed, had led to widespread abortion...
...The bill also aims at totally banning abortifacientsma difficult assignment for legislators as even Irish medical opinion is divided as to what constitutes an abortifacient...
...Unlike the classical 1951 situation when the bishops outrightly opposed Dr...
...The genial philosopher in English university even now, will tend to see it as the former, and to regard the polite skepticisms of postEnlightenment culture as our most important cultural assets...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 REPORT FROM IRELAND CONTRACEPTION IN GOD'S GREEN ISLE...
...A few weeks later the hierarchy without prior warning issued a statement on contraception which at first sight appeared to be an advance on previous episcopal interventions in Irish political life but which in fact was subtle and effective obstruction...
...An attempt in the Irish Senate, the upper chamber, in 1971 by three young Senators, Mary Robinson, John Horgan and Trevor West, to introduce a bill legalizing contraceptives failed to get a first reading...
...However, the first move came not from the government benches but once again from the trio of young senators...
...The law also was a problem for customs officers, both in searching tourists and Irish people coming in from abroad or from the North, where contraceptives are available...
...The inevitable sequel to the introduction of the government's bill was the refusal of the Senate to give the Robinson bill a second reading...
...couples will be able to purchase contraceptives only at licensed chemist shops, and people "without a living spouse" found contravening the regulations will be liable to fines of around $250 or face imprisonment...
...In accordance with the Supreme Court decision the Minister for Justice, Mr...
...And the answer to that question seemed to depend on how you view the contemporary scene...
...It proposed that the Minister for Health should license the sale of contraceptives in chemist shops and hospitals, while some contraceptives should be available on prescription only...
...In the course of several pages he cites various authorities to prove that this "typical Irishman" does not exist...
...JOHN COONEY (John Cooney, Commonweal's regular correspondent in Ireland, is on the staff o[ the Irish Times...
...McGhee had been told by her doctors that, because of her health, she should not have any more children...
...The same observation could apply to the so-called "typical Irish situation...
...In recent years much has been written and said about the "new Ireland"--that the country was now becoming urbanized, efficient, prosperous, independent-minded, an active member of the European Economic Community, and that in the postconciliar Church the myth of the priest-ridden nation had been dispelled forever...
...I suppose the reply will mostly depend on where you happen to find yourself born...
...Amid muffled rumors that the government was considering introducing its own bill, the Robinson bill received a first reading...
...However, since then there have been indications that the climate of opinion was becoming more receptive to change...
...As one commentator remarked, the Irish bishops still dominate the bedroom...
...This proved to be successful, with many local politicians becoming afraid of constituency and parish priest opinion...
...However, at the time the momentum appeared to be in favor of change...
...The Dignity statement added that "after centuries of persecution" the time has come for the spirit of Jesus to prevail among Catholics, to love your neighbor, to respect the dignity of every person, and to oppose all forms of oppression...
...If the Church, in New York or elsewhere, cannot do this then its thinking is indeed where one dismayed New York Catholic politician said it is: back in the 1880s...
...On the other hand the priest or partisan just back from the other side of the iron curtain, or indeed from Washington or Mozambique will doubtless tend to regard the whole world as a sort of 'aldeamento' or 'specification zone.' Clearly, there is no definitive solution to such a large and vaguely-formulated disagreement...
...But they added that in 24 May 1974:276 doing so the legislature should take account of the character of Irish society (i.e., traditional Catholicism) and the "quality of life...
...Mary McGhee against the 1972 seizure by customs officials of a package of contraceptive jelly being sent to her from Britain...
...The justices also made the point, contrary to article 37 of the Irish constitution which states that the woman's place is in the home, that couples have the right to choose whether or not to have a family, thus opening the way for a complete revision of the position of women in Irish society...
...In the hope that official reaction and public opinion had changed since 1971 Senator Robinson introduced the Family Planning Bill, 1973, in the Senate last November...
Vol. 100 • May 1974 • No. 12
