Table 2 Examples of potential fallacies in the studied abortion debate

Appeal to authority

Based on the Word of God (Bible) and sound ethics it is clear that abortion is not right.

[68]

I am not going to read here, what Mother Teresa herself said during the acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize on December 11, 1979, but I am going to say that what she said influenced my conviction on this issue 35 years ago, and all that is still valid.

[69]

Ad hominem

The Minister is a young man and he should wise up.

[70]

My last word is directed at Fianna Fáil, which has recently decided that, apparently, the eighth amendment does not matter. It would seem its members have decided to position themselves as backwoodsmen. No wonder they do not represent women. They clearly are out of touch with the general population. They should change their position and grow a spine on behalf of women in this country.

[71]

Appeal to ridicule

The only response the Minister gave on this issue when we discussed it previously was that if we were to remove the eighth amendment, we would remove all protections for women. That is bizarre. It is as if suddenly women were going to be the victims of some rampaging murderers or whatever.

[72]

It must be a strange place, that parallel universe of the pro-abortion campaigner, where killing is dressed up as compassion, and where, in stout denial of all the scientific facts, babies aren’t really human beings. Pregnant women aren’t really carrying a baby in their wombs you see. Maybe they find them in cabbage patches. Or storks bring them in cute colourful slings.

[73]

Guilt by association

Deputy Wallace referred to the possibility that 30% of people in prison are wrongly convicted. I do not know if that is true. I certainly hope it is not, but a miscarriage of justice can be reversed, and people can be released. Terminations are not reversible. One of the reasons we do not have the death penalty in this country is exactly for that reason.

[74]

I have listened to some of the contributions from some of the people who would have opposing views to mine, talking about a free vote and conscience, etc. I ask these people, who talk about wrestling with their consciences on this Bill which will protect women in difficult circumstances, where their conscience was during treatment of the women and girls in the Magdalen laundries. Where was their voice during the clerical sexual abuse which went on for 80 or 90 years? They were not to be heard.

[75]

Appeal to consequences

The fetus is a Homo Sapiens with human dignity. If this is denied, the universal and objective value of human dignity is also denied. In that case, there’s ethically an open road towards, for example, involuntary euthanasia, eugenics and mass murders.

[76]

If we go down that road, where a person can decline from performing a duty that (s)he has accepted, for ethical reasons, we’ll very soon be in the situation where, for instance, a taxi-driver can decline from taking a woman to a hospital, if it is possible that she’s going there for an abortion.

[77]

Weak analogy

Based on conscience, we allow people to decline from taking the military service, although they are just learning there how to kill.

[78]

Amnesty and others would claim that abortion is a matter of “choice”. We do not give people a choice when it comes to issues like smoking in public places, drinking-driving, wearing seat-belts, stealing, slander and libel, selling hardcore drugs, raping or killing. We do not agree to “choices” in such circumstances because such things are a danger to safety, health and human dignity. I would argue that the same may be said with regard to abortion.

[79]

Straw man

Deputy O’Riordain, it seems, wants our morality to revert all the way back to the Roman Empire.

[80]

Now this initiative seems to be used to gain something totally different: by using the health care personnel, people are trying to create for our society a climate that would make abortion a shame and a taboo.

[81]

Complex question

Why is only the life of an unborn child holy to the men of Finns Party?

[82]

How much longer can the political establishment in this country hold to a barbaric medieval law which equates a woman with a foetus and leads to these situations?

[71]