Friday, May 10, 2013

Transnational conservative elites

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley will not attend the graduation ceremony at Boston College because the guest is Taoiseach Enda Kenny and O'Malley says that Kenny is "aggressively promoting abortion legislation." This prompts two questions.

First, which set of Irish or Irish American pro-life activists got to the Cardinal to inspire this course of action? Second, does the answer to question 1 form his only news source on the topic?

The answer to question 2 is most likely Yes, since it will come as news to any actual pro-choice campaigners that Enda Kenny or the relevant legislation is pro-abortion. Here's the outline text (the bill is still being drafted). One hint to his eminence that he might have been misinformed should come from the bill's title: The Protection of Life During Pregnancy.

The bill legislates for abortion in highly restrictive circumstances, and the necessity to legislate for those circumstances was created by a Church-backed constitutional amendment, subsequent Supreme Court legislation, and the likelihood of further Savita-type cases which exposed the gaps in the current framework. The Cardinal needs some more diverse information sources.