After R -v- R what next? Pointers from the 5 Supreme Court Judgments - Introduction

5th January 2010

After R -v- R what next? Pointers from the 5 Supreme Court Judgments
The pro-life community in Ireland is weighing up what to do following the Supreme Court rulings in R -v- R. I’ve been reading the 5 judgments and it seems to me there are many pointers in them that leave little or no doubt as to what the next step has to be. So I’m picking out these pointers, one judgement at a time, having a look at them.

I'm looking at the judgement of the Chief Justice, John Murray first. The conclusion is that the pointer from Mr Justice Murray’s judgment is clear and explicit: ‘ … it is for legislatures in the exercise of their dispositive powers to resolve such issues on the basis of policy choices.’ (p. 11)  ‘The onus rests in the Oireachtas, to make the initial policy determination so as to define by law when ‘the life of the unborn’ acquires protection.’ (p. 12)

Mr Justice Murray is saying it is up to the Oireachtas to define by law the protection to be provided to human life not implanted in a mother.

Those of us who see human embryos as equal members of the human family, thus, have to do our duty as democrats, get in touch with our political representatives, and work to persuade them to bring in legislation protecting the right to life of the vulnerable embryonic human lives in vitro.