Ireland’s ‘Pill Bill’

Press, 24 November 1980, Page 20

Ireland’s ‘Pill Bill’

By

SELWYN PARKER

in Dublin

In the last few days it has become almost impossible to obtain any form of contraceptive in Ireland. The reason: there aren’t any left. In a frantic rush to stock up on the pill, condoms and other contraceptives before the so-called “Pill Bill” — the new Family Planning laws — came into effect on November 1, the public has practically cleared out Ireland's entire supplies. Queues formed outside the (illegal) family planning clinics in the final days of the old laws. Contraceptive mail-order suppliers were flooded. “People are buying Durex by the gross,” said one harassed member of a Dublin clinic.

The soaring sales resulted from people’s anxiety about the new Family Planning Act, easily the most reactionary' law in. Europe in the area of birth control. Devised by the present Prime Minister, Mr Charles Haughey, when he was Health Minister and justified by him as “an Irish solution to an Irish problem,” the regulations have provoked a mounting storm of indignation throughout the country. “An audacious and insulting attack on the rights of citizens . . .” snorted a

leading Opposition M.P. and former .Health Minister, Dr Noel Browne. .

Mimicking the Prime Minister*s phrase, a theologian and ex-priest, Mr Peter de Rosa, has described the laws as “a Republican solution to an Irish problem." Women’s groups throughout the country have organised rallies and announced their intention to openly defy the laws. About the only public supporters for the regulations are the hierarchy of Catholic bishops, the extreme Knights of St Columbanus, and the Catholic Guild of Pharmacists.

Essentially the laws mean that anybody, whether married or not will have to go to a doctor to get a prescription for a contraceptive, even for a condom. The doctor may not provide the prescription, to the “patient’s” embarrassment, because a “conscience clause” in the laws says the G.P. may refuse on religious grounds. But that’s only the first hurdle. If the G.P. provides the prescription, the chemist may refuse to supply the goods also through die conscience clause. It’s estimated that probably a majority will refuse.

Already it’s reported that many doctors, especially in country areas, have refused contraceptive prescriptions even to mothers of large families.

Mr Haughey claims the

laws improve the old legislation which banned the sale of contraceptives completely, except for “medical purposes” which effectively meant the pill was supplied as a means of regulating the menstrual cycle. It was a loophole which many exploited. (One shock result of the laws is that intrauterine devices, such as the coil, are now illegal because the Government has accepted the bishops’ description of them as abortifacient — (causing abortion). While most Protestant clergymen in 97 per cent Catholic Ireland have complained that contraception is a matter for the individual, not the doctor’s conscience, the hierarchy of bishops is plainly unhappy at any legislation allowing birth control other than bv what it calls “the natural method.” In a long statement the bishops warned; “Contraceptive intercourse is contrary to God’s design for the expression of married love ana the transmission of human life. No State legislation can alter the moral teaching.”

But a recent poll indicated that most Irish adults endorse what a 23-year-old single secretary from Gall way . says about the act: “It’* a gross infringement oS privacy." 1