archived-news

Last week, Newstalk Radio ran an three-day campaign seeking to change the law to allow for abortion in cases where children have a profound disability, dubbed a 'fatal foetal abnormality' by Irish commentators, even though the conditions are not always fatal.
 
The Lunchtime programme, on two consecutive days, featured two mothers who had travelled for abortion after being told their children would not survive outside the womb. In at least one case, parents seemed to have been misinformed as to the time they might have with their child, and in each case, the presenter glossed over the reality of abortion as a 'solution' to these tragic circumstances. Perinatal hospice care was not mentioned at anytime.
 
On the third day, Newstalk brought on Dr Peter Boylan (who the media regularly trot out to call for abortion to be legalised) and he, as expected, called for abortion to be legalised in cases where unborn children have a profound or perhaps fatal disability.
 
Having alerted you to this dreadful bias, a great many of you emailed and called Newstalk. On Monday, the station brought Clíona Johnson on air to talk about her son John-Paul, who lived for just 17 minutes after birth and was loved and cherished for his short life. She called for better provision and awareness of perinatal hospice care.
 
You can see the beautiful story of Clíona and John Paul here on the Every Life Counts website:  http://www.everylifecounts.ie/stories/john-paul-johnson/