Scotland could have done things differently. It could have bent the rules, it could have broken the rules, it could have saved lives. Instead, the Scottish government has stuck to Britain’s chaotic and dangerous plan. All it can do now is pray and hope for the best.
Jason Michael McCann
Scotland is quite unique in the horrific unfolding drama that is the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Kingdom is among a small number of states around the world actively working against the expert advice of the World Health Organisation in its ‘handling’ of the crisis - if indeed that is what we can call it, and the consequences of this policy are evident in the cost in human lives. It is already apparent that the UK will experience the highest death toll in Europe, and the international mathematical and statistical modellers are estimating that by August the coronavirus crisis will have claimed in excess of 60 thousand lives in Britain. This certainly is not rocket science. It is simple epidemiology; countries which follow the advice of the experts fare better than those that don’t, and the British government is only now coming to this realisation.
Scotland is unique in that, while it has enough devolved powers to make a real difference to these outcomes, as a part of the United Kingdom, it is broadly following the disastrous course the British government has set. As could easily have been predicted, Scotland is now suffering at the same rate as England and the rest of the UK. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, is a capable politician, but an expert in virology she is not. Either on bad advice or as a result of personal lack of character, she has so far refused to take Scotland in another direction from the rest of the UK - even though it is clear to the rest of the world that she is on the wrong road and so causing unnecessary death.
Sure, she is the leader of a dependent nation with a sub-state legislature constitutionally bound to the British state and personally subjected, by oath, to to the British crown, but there are things she could have done and yet did not. Examples abound of what she and the Scottish government could have done differently. Irish hospitals will not reach their critical care and intensive care capacity - a country only a little smaller than Scotland. When Ireland closed its schools, colleges, and universities, the Scottish government was still following - to the letter - the ‘four nations’ insanity being spouted by Boris Johnson. Even now Scotland has not deviated significantly from this suicidal British plan.
Scotland is unique in that it is not a state and yet had the power to act to defend itself against the orders of London. Scotland chose not to do this, and even now dithers when it comes to tougher measures - measures not sanctioned by Downing Street - which have been shown everywhere else to work. This failure has put Scotland on course for what is now an unavoidable disaster. Frankly, it is too late to make the changes now. The horse has bolted and we are seeing in the rising number of infections and the mounting pile of bodies that Scotland and Scots will simply have to hunker down and prepare for the worst. At every stage of this catastrophe, starting four months ago, the Edinburgh government was in full command of the facts and the available options. It knew the experiences of China, Iran, and Italy, and it was fully informed as to the advice of the WHO. This is not something that can now be blamed on the British government, as Scotland could have always done things differently.
Now we can only look on from the outside and watch as nature takes its course. The ship is going down by the head and nothing can stop it. Hospitals in Scotland and all over the UK will be overwhelmed and more people will die than ever needed to die. All we can do now is watch and hope with all our might that some miracle happens, that Donald Trump was right for once and the virus will melt away with the better weather. Better weather? Now, that would be a miracle in Scotland. The entire mess is heartbreaking to watch.
This is the list of confirmed dates for Jason Michael’s “World Tour of Scotland” pro-independence talking tour. More dates will be added as they are confirmed and some may be subject to change.
Contact: If you would like to host Jeggit for an event before 29 March, you can reach him on Twitter @Jeggit.
PLEASE HELP FUND THE TOUR
Kilmarnock 29 January
Yes East Ayrshire: 31C Titchfield Street, Kilmarnock at 7pm - 9pm
Airdrie 30 January
Airdrie Independence: One Wellwynd, 35 Wellwynd, Airdrie at 7pm - 9pm
Kirkcaldy 31 January
20 Hunter St, Kirkcaldy at 12pm - 2pm
Tayport 27 February
Tayport Arms, Nelson St., Tayport at 8pm - 10pm
Yes Rutherglen 6 March
Sweepers, Somervell St, Cambuslang, Glasgow at 7pm
Yes Inverness 7 March
Inverness Caledonian Thistle Social Club, 28 Greig Street, Inverness at 7pm - 9pm
8 March Aviemore
Orkney 9 March
The Orkney Club, 16 Harbour Street, Kirkwall at 7pm - 9pm
Elgin 10 March
The Inkwell, Francis Place, Elgin, Moray at 6pm - 8pm
Brechin 12 March
Caledonian Hotel, 43-47 Southesk St, Brechin at 7.30pm - 9.30pm
Perth 14 March
Grampian Hotel, 37 York Place, Perth at 7pm - 9pm
20 March Ayr
Stirling 21 March
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, 40 Albert Place, Stirling at 7pm - 9m
Hello folks! On Saturday I am coming over from Dublin for a very special occasion - the 2018 #AUOB picnic at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. After marching to the park I hope to address you from one of the stands. Before and after the event I will be meeting and greeting anyone who wants to come and say ‘hello’ at Procaffeination Cafe (4 St Mary's Street). I’ll be there from 11am until the start of the march and I will be going back there afterwards. Please come and see me. I really want to see you.
Here are all the details of the event. This is the culmination of a huge programme of pro-independence marches and rallies all over Scotland. This is Edinburgh. This is our capital! Rallying for independence through Edinburgh is symbolically important. This is massive. Let’s make it massive. Let’s give it justice. This is the big one! I’d like to see 100,000 independentistas - mammies and daddies and grannies and grandpas, aw the weans, everybody - even the dugs. Please make the effort to get to your capital and march for independence on Saturday 6 October. I’ll see you there.
Suffering can’t be ignored, no matter how we try. We walk the earth with our eyes tightly closed, but all about us we hear and feel and smell and taste the pain; the pain of sisters and brothers, of fathers mother, daughters son. Natures cruelty and man’s vicious indifference and malice everywhere leaves it mark. There is nowhere, no stage on which the human and animal drama is set, where we are free from this suffering.
It is unjust. It is not right. More unjust still the idea that we are nothing; souls to ache and grieve and writhe in misery without justice - without an eye to see and an ear to hear. What emptiness is this? What futility! Against this my heart, and soul, and mind rebel. This I spit out and cry: NO!
I believe in a God I cannot see or know or even imagine. One in and through all the universe who is - simply is. One by whose being brings life to colour like blossoming flowers, One who loves - just Loves - every petal and stem. From our roots to the bees who visit us loves us and knows us - Loves us and Knows us - because that is what being does, loves and knows. I believe in this God not because I have been told, but because I need, nature needs and craves this God because this is the soil in which we are nourished and find love and knowledge and justice unending.
Society is not a thing that forms by accident as a mere consequence of people living in a certain place. It is something we construct by our presence together and the native environment - like the family home - in which we learn our culture and develop our shared ethics and morality. Society is the relationship by which we accommodate one another, celebrate and indeed tolerate each other’s differences, and assist others to live in our wider community.
We cannot measure society, as we have been doing, in the same way we measure the health or success of our economy or our body politic. Society is measured by the social capital - the trust and respect - it produces. We measure it in how individuals fare within it, how they thrive as persons and as members of the community. It must be measured always by how the poorest and weakest fare, and how we adapt to the presence of strangers. It is measured by the fruit of the capital it produces: compassion and kindness.
We were bullied and harassed into silence and submission:
Ireland’s referendum on the Eighth Amendment is over now. Those in favour of repeal won by a considerable majority, effectively ending the discussion in the state for the foreseeable future. It is all over.
This was without doubt the most divisive political experience I have ever lived through - and I am a veteran of the Scottish independence campaign. The debate never came to blows, thank God, but the level of personal abuse - considering the personal and painful nature of the subject - was on a level I have never seen before, and hope to never experience again.
Yes supporters and No supporters suffered an unprecedented level of abuse on the streets for the positions they held, but sadly - and I hope it comes to light - I cannot speak for the Yes campaign. I can only share my own experience of this most bitter of campaigns.
Name Calling
Given that a third of Ireland was against the repeal of the Eighth - for a multitude of reasons - No badges were conspicuously absent on the streets of Dublin, giving the false impression that there was no support for No in the city. Consequently I made the decision to begin wearing a No badge.
Wearing it I was approached by a number of people, all women. The first was a Yes campaigner on Henry Street who shouted at me that I was “on the side of the lunatics, women haters, and religious fanatics.” I was then shouted at by a group of younger women calling me a “rape apologist.” Lastly, on public transport, a woman of about my age spat out the words at me: “Are you some sort of fucking wife beater or something.”
On another occasion I watched as a group of young women dramatically slammed down their utensils, lifted their plates, and moved to another table in a fast food restaurant when another woman sat near them wearing a “Love Both” No badge on her jacket. After finishing my food I waited for her to finish and thanked her for wearing it when she reached the door. She burst into tears.
Being Asked The Impossible
There were many reasons people voted No. But at the heart of this was the question of life. This was not about seeking to harm women or put them in danger - it was a sincere consideration that the question was always about two lives. No one who accepts the life and the humanity of the unborn could vote Yes to a poll that asked them to remove all protections from all children for the first 12 weeks in the womb. This was the impossible position in which No voters were in, and yet this was ignored.
We were routinely told that we were defending a Catholic Church that raped children and locked women away in Magdalene Laundries. We were told that we were religious nutters, that we were women haters. Men who spoke up were shouted down for not being women, and women who spoke up were shouted down for being “backward” and “demented.”
One woman who voted No by postal voted revealed to me that she felt guilty voting No, saying that she felt society was pressing on her a guilt even though she believed she was doing the right thing. Her particular fear was that she would be “tested” for this by having a profoundly disabled child. She told me she felt under continual stress and pressure to “conform,” but her conscience would not allow her.
Recriminations and Open Season
Among No voters the consensus is that we are to go to ground. We have been defeated and the emboldened, more militant Yes voters are hunting us. I haven’t felt particularly hunted, but then I left Dublin for a few days after the result. I can respect the vote and the democratic decision, but I cannot accept abortion. This is ethically and morally impossible for me.
Over social media I have seen the celebrations of Yes supporters turn into prolonged attacks on prominent No supporters, with all No supporters being equated with the more extreme fringes of the No camp.
Без бога - то и без будущей жизни - Ведь это, стало быть, теперь всё позволено, всё можно делать.
“Without God, without an afterlife, in the end, it will be that everything is allowed, anything can be done?”
Dostoevsky is little comfort at the best of times, but - for me at any rate - he is no comfort at a time like this. Yet he is correct, and no doubt it is my realisation of the truth of his observation - as spoken by Dmitri to his brother Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov - that leaves me thus; defeated, depressed, and despondent. Without God anything can be done.
Totalitarianism and tyranny have never had a need for God, they have - in order to exist - dispensed with and mercilessly persecuted those who defend the moral and ethical framework that comes with religion and faith. It was to the horror of the German churchmen that the National Socialists conducted Aktion T4 - the removal of the right to life of the disabled in their barbaric euthanasia programme. The crimes of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and others were only possible when God and religious morality and ethics had been silenced.
Human life has no intrinsic value without an understanding, at least somewhere in society, that it is made in the imago Dei. Secular moralists will and do argue that “morality” is possible without God, but this remains to be seen. What it presents is always the same - a utilitarian ethics of expedience in which the good is determined by what makes people comfortable in their pursuit of their individual happiness. At best this is mere selfishness, an ethic of self-indulgence. Such is not ethics. It lacks even the quality of being amoral. It is simply immorality, and produces only wickedness.
Ethics is not about making acceptable that which is objectively wrong. It is about seeking an understanding of objective goodness and striving to make this the standard by which we measure our lives and actions. Ethics without an immutable arbiter cannot grasp objective goodness, and therefore cannot achieve true moral goodness. As its arbiter is only ever the aggregate of mutable and whimsical public opinion it can only ever promote an ethic that is acceptable to the majority - an ethic that will mutate to meet the changing demands of that majority. To this ethic everything is allowed, anything can be done.
Invariably, as we have seen in the past and are seeing now, this godless morality becomes nothing more than a death cult. It makes sense then that atheism and the demand for abortion go hand-in-hand.
A Yes vote tomorrow in the Irish abortion referendum - effectively allowing for the unrestricted access to abortion up to 12 weeks - will be the gravest failing of the Church in Irish society. There is no more delicate way to put this. Over decades of clerical and ecclesiastical institutional abuse, negligence, arrogance, and utter incompetence the Church in Ireland and in many places around the world has put people in a position wherein they understand their sense of freedom and personal well-being as secure only when they are ideologically and diametrically in opposition to the presumed authority of Church.
God, who revealed himself to us in the incarnation - in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, established the Church as the Body of Christ - as the instrument and beacon of human liberty and salvation - to guide and protect all of God’s people. Notwithstanding the life and service of many Christians the world over, the leaders of the Church have failed in their duty - making victims of women and men made in imago Dei, the daughters and sons of the Church made new through baptism, and the Church herself. Their legacy in our generation is that they have made our Mother, the Church, an enemy of the world rather than its guiding light.
Consequently many will vote tomorrow - as they have in the past - in deliberate opposition to Christian doctrine and the teaching of the Church, and they will see this as a moral good - and we have pushed them to this. While there are many ethical reasons to intervene medically in a pregnancy to save the life of a mother, human nature - being what it is - will result in abortions - the killing of innocents, however few or many, for reasons of expedience, moral weakness, selfishness, and spite - and all the while “Choice” will be heralded as the greatest moral good.
A Yes vote in this referendum will be a grievous indictment of the Church and its failure to maintain the genuine and authentic love of the people of God. It will share in no small measure in the decision of the people of Ireland and it will bear the guilt for the many lives that will be unnecessarily ended. Indeed the greatest measure of the sinfulness of this intrinsically evil act will be laid firmly at the feet of the Church because it was charged with the mission to save - and in this commission it will have failed.
WHY I WILL BE VOTING AGAINST THE REPEAL OF THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT TO THE IRISH CONSTITUTION
On Friday 25 May 2018 the people of Ireland will go to the polls to decide whether or not to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, a clause inserted into article 3 of the Constitution acknowledging the equality of the right to life of the mother and of the unborn. There can be no doubt this outright constitutional ban on abortion in Ireland has caused a great deal of suffering, with many women over the years being forced to carry non-viable pregnancies to term or to “take the boat” in order to procure a termination abroad.
The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.
Bunreacht na hÉireann, Article 40.3.3º
The Eighth Amendment is not, in my opinion, fit for purpose and must be repealed. Perhaps putting such an item into the Constitution was not the wisest of moves in the first place. Yet, while I will accept the serious failings of the amendment and the damage it has caused, I have decided to vote NO in the upcoming referendum.
The Proposal
On the face of it the proposed alternative, allowing the Oireachtas to regulate abortion in the state, looks sound. It reads:
If a majority votes Yes, this will allow the Oireachtas to pass laws regulating the termination of pregnancy. These laws need not limit the availability of termination to circumstances where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother. Any law may be changed by the Oireachtas. If challenged, any law may be declared invalid by the courts if it conflicts with the Constitution.
The Independent Guide to the Referendum on the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy, Referendum Commission (2018)
However, this is made problematic by the Irish government’s expressed intention to legislate for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks if the Eighth Amendment is repealed. My own desire to see this matter removed from the Constitution in no way means that I can, in good conscience, accept unrestricted access to abortion. No matter our personal opinions on the subject, the foetus is a living thing - a human being.
As it stands in Irish law, with the constitutional protection of the right to life of the unborn in place, abortion is legal in the state in very limited circumstances. An abortion can be performed in Ireland when certain criteria have been met:
The present legal position is therefore that it is lawful for a pregnancy to be terminated only where it poses a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, including a risk of suicide. This is determined in accordance with the 2013 Act. Otherwise, it is a criminal offence to intentionally destroy unborn human life.
Referendum Commission (2018)
While this may be too limited, it does acknowledge that the unborn is indeed a “human life.” The logical end of unrestricted access to abortion is that a defenceless human life can be destroyed at the discretion of its mother. The campaign for a Yes vote may ask us to “trust women,” but woman and men alike are capable of making bad, misguided, and selfish decisions. No human life should be at the mercy of one person and without legal protection.
Not About Shaming Women
The anti-abortion - or the “pro-life” - position is routinely framed by supporters of abortion rights as anti-women; that it is misogynistic, that it’s about resisting women’s rights to control over their own bodies, and about shaming them for their choices. No doubt examples of this can be found on the fringes of the pro-life movement, but this is by no means typical of the opinion of the great majority of people who have concerns about abortion.
Both mother and child have a right to life, as the Constitution presently recognises, and sometimes these rights are in competition. The outright ban on the termination of pregnancy poses serious difficulties in therapeutic contexts and can ultimately endanger the lives of both the mother and the baby. Rather than being positioned against women, the concern of many is for what is best for two human beings.
Unborn Human Life
Quite independent of the ethical question of whether or not the destruction of an unborn human being can be justified is the issue of life. There are grave situations, for sure, when medical intervention directed towards saving the life of the mother will result in the death of the child. While this is abortion, saving the woman’s life is the right thing to do.
Yet, even as we recognise that there are times when such interventions are necessary, we must not deny that the unborn is a human life. In the womb it is completely dependent on its mother, but the unborn is not a part of the mother. It is a a human life in and of itself.
It is this quality of living humanity that makes decisions around abortion so difficult. Acting to save the life of the child when the mother is not in danger or at risk of suicide is not a refusal of the woman’s rights. It is protecting the life of an innocent and defenceless human being. It is absolutely not a right to end the life of another person, and - equally - there is no right to abortion in Irish law or in international law.
My Decision
There is a real need for the Eighth Amendment to be repealed. There was always a crucial need for clarification of the existing law - something that was never done by the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments. However, without legislation that expressly acknowledges the life of the unborn and its rights the reality is that this repeal will only lead to the denial of life and the rights of the unborn. This is something I am not willing to accept.
On 25 May I will be voting No, but I will be doing that hoping we can either revisit this question with better options or that the existing law will be clarified.
España, eres un bastardo entre las naciones. Tú eres el cerdo del mundo. Lo que has hecho nunca será perdonado. Mientras viva, nunca te perdonaré lo que has hecho.
Spain, you are a bastard among the nations. You are the swine of the world. You will never be forgiven for what you have done. For as long as I live I will never forgive you.
Allow me to put my cards on the table. I am not comfortable with the idea of abortion and neither am I entirely comfortable with the rights discourse that has become attached to the question of abortion. Yet this does not mean that I am in favour of the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution.
I am a Christian and this does have a part to play in how I think about the ethics of the termination of the life of the unborn. Women too have a right to life and the right to health, and there are situations in which medical intervention is required to save the life of a pregnant woman. To deny this is fundamentally antithetical to any morality that treasures the sanctity of life.
It is simply not the case that Christians cannot support the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Ultimately for the Christian this is a question of bioethics and informed conscience. It would be wrong for a Christian to support and enable - in any way - any law that would allow for unrestricted access to abortion. But this need not be what is asked in this referendum.
According to the teaching of the Catholic Church abortion is a “grave offence” and a “crime against human life.” As such it is considered a grave and mortal sin. The Catechism states:
Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae, by the very commission of the offence, and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society. 2272
In Christian tradition, however, the principle of double effect has long been accepted; that while it is wrong to intentionally end the life of the unborn, it is permissible to therapeutically intervene to save the life of the mother even when this intervention results in the death of the child.
The problem we have in this debate in Ireland at present is that the extremes on either side are drowning out the centre. What this means in practice is that both sides are wrongly personalising and demonising their opposition. In doing this both sides run the risk of alienating people who might otherwise be prepared to listen to the case they have to make.
It’s the time of year again, the week before St. Patrick’s Day. The streets of Dublin are filling up with tourists with thick American accents. The bars are all packed out and all sorts of crazy is starting to happen.
#StPatricksDay Jaysus! It was only a matter of time. pic.twitter.com/TCMJhR0lCO
— Jason Michael (@Jeggit)
March 11, 2018
We all ought to be looking for somewhere else to be.
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