Repealing Eighth ‘could lead to euthanasia and eugenics

Repealing the Eighth Amendment to allow for abortion in Ireland could pave the way for the introduction of euthanasia and eugenics, two Catholic bishops have warned.

Bishop of Cork and Ross Dr John Buckley said the debate about repeal had failed to make any mention of “the rightness” or “wrongness”of human behaviour despite all authorities on moral matters agreeing the deliberate taking of innocent human life was always wrong.

“We can be sure that if a society decides that human life is disposable at its beginning, it will not be too long before it decides the same for human life at its end...human life is sacred and precious...this is true in every moment of life from its first beginning to its natural end.”

In a pastoral letter on the right to life read out at all Masses in all 68 parishes in the diocese on Sunday, Dr Buckley said there was a danger people may confuse abortion with necessary medical intervention, which, he said, has never been denied to any Irish woman as a result of the Eighth Amendment.

“In 1983 the Irish people voted into the Constitution an amendment that would give the unborn child the same legal right as the mother. Under its provisions no life-saving treatment is ever, or legally can ever, be denied to an expectant mother.

“The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of the child in the womb should be preferred to that of the mother. A doctor may give any treatment that is necessary to either mother or child without deliberately intending harm to the other.”

Abortion, on the other hand, was a “deliberate medical intervention to end the life of an unborn child”, said Dr Buckley. He pointed out that the Supreme Court had ruled that the unborn baby enjoys only one constitutional right, namely the right to life, thanks to the Eighth Amendment.