Church influence birth procedure - Irish Times today - harrowing

[BeingFluffy]

Warning - article is harrowing. Describes an "alternative" to CS by widening the pelvis. I was in tears of rage reading of an now elderly woman's experience and suffering. I can't believe this was an authorised surgical procedure. Did it go in the UK as well?

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0612/1224317753223.html

I would consider my grandmother a victim rather than a bystander. She didn't vote anyone in, and she didn't get a choice as to how she was brought up. When she had had her first three c-sections the doctor should have told her to stop having children and to either be sterilised or go on some form of contraception. The doctor didn't do that and the reason was that the Catholic Church banned contraception and forbade doctors from talking to patients about it. In that situation I don't think my grandmother was complicit in the regime that resulted in her having an incredibly hard life. The Vatican most definitely knew about the practice of not advising women to stop having children, and they condoned it.

But in relation to other things such as the Magdalene laundries I agree.

Catholicism in Ireland was very different in Ireland to England. Its role in the construction of the Irish state was huge. Archbishop mcQuaid, helped shape our constitution which put firmly put Irish women in the role of mothers first and foremost, hence articles about abortion and the importance of the woman in the home. Irish politicians, went along with the Church as did the great majority of the public, some from belief, many others from fear and ignorance. In Ireland the Church was as much about power, especially over women, as it was about religion. In England, the Catholic church had little to no political power and it is a completely different animal. The Irish Church's behaviour towards women and children has been hugely shameful - this latest stories are in a long line of misogynistic acts.

I highly recommend Dr Noel Browne's Against the Tide for an insight into the church's influence over medicine in Ireland and their opposition to free health care. It was only in the early nineties that it was legal to buy condoms in a machine, most Irish school children at the height of the AIDS scare were not allowed be taught about condoms- the church ran the great majority of Irish schools. Much of the population were cowed - to stand up against the Church was only for the very brave. I make a distinction between the priests/bishops and the faithful. And of course there have been wonderful priests and nuns, but sadly the power hungry fundamentalists did a huge amount of damage.

In England, Catholicism appears to be more about choice and belief. In Ireland till recently you had little choice: the Church had enormous power and totally misused it. Family members stopped attending at the height of the scandals and made an informed decision to return as they learnt to separate their faith from the hierarchy. As an Irishwoman, Catholicism is a huge part of my cultural heritage, but not in a spiritual sense. Any faith i had was destroyed by the acts of the Hierarchy. I feel that this huge power the Catholic church had over our lives is possibly unique in Europe and is miles away from the English Catholic experience.

In Ireland, according to the Church, a woman's role was to give birth, regardless of her feelings or health and our laws and medical practices were made to reflect that. Thankfully things have changed, enormously and the power of the Church has waned.

In this particular instance, the practice in question was not publicised or known about, even at the time. Women had really only started going into hospitals to have their babies during the 50s in Ireland, so the general feeling was the doctors knew what they were doing, and were not to be questioned. Medical practices (such as c-sections, symphisiotomies etc) was not really discussed and medical negligence was unheard of, as doctors were akin to gods. Even the cultural history around childbirth was very closed, in that women didn't have access to the same information we do now, so they didn't know what was normal and what was not, not to mention negligent. So they couldn't be blamed for something that was in essence foisted upon them.
So I don't agree with the complicit victim notion in this case, Ethel, but I agree in relation to Magdalene etc.
This was a country where the government felt they had to ask permission to introduce tampons for sale to Irish women, by meeting Archbishop McQuaid. He didn't agree with the concept of tampons, so they didn't go on sale.
here www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume15/issue6/features/?id=114154

Ethel, I would hold many Irish people accountable but you also have to acknowledge the difficulties. Read up on the Ferns abuses. People knew, people complained and the police and church ignored it. Complain to the school? Board of gov run by the church. Non catholic doctors were not employed generally by catholic hospitals. Complain to the hospital governors? Run by the Church. Censorship was rife- any book critical of the church, about sexuality, in defiance of the catholic teachings? Banned.

There are many complicit in Ireland but there are also many victims and this openness is relatively recent. I can assure you this is being taken very seriously by many examining their own consciences and recalled the past.

There is much public debate and soul searching around these kinds of topics within Ireland, ethel. I can appreciate that that may not seem to be the case from the outside. Older generations are trying to come to terms with what went on, and like usuallydormant has said, the openness is a very new thing. The newspaper the OP reefers to has, in particular, been quite dogged in its coverage of the recent scandals. The result is a very shaken nation. I know the whole paddy's day everyone wants to be Irish thing must rankle - it does with me and I'm Irish- but it is really becoming a thing of the past.

It was pervasive.
there was no where to turn, no foothold to bounce off, no memory of a different way of life .
Those who felt stifled emigrated.
the keep calm and carry on crowd stayed home and did their thing.

Rotten.
But for the ordinary person, normal.

I see the situation as analogous to being in an abusive marriage.
You feel if you play your cards right, turn a blind eye and be careful not to draw attention, everything will be great and everyone will be happy.

Plus a hefty dose of victim blaming, such as you still see in weakened form when say a woman gets raped today. Well she shouldn't have, should've done this, what did she expect, that's just the world is. etc etc

I had no idea the Irish and English experiences were so different, usually. Shocking. Is it better now?

It is miles and miles better now Spring.

That lady on Vincent browne now, harrowing

I think there may still be a different culture in Irish hospitals in relation to maternity than other places. I have a friend, who even as a private patient in Dublin, was made to go 16 days over her due date, and gave birth to her baby who ended up with brain damage.

My friend is convinced that it is because the baby was left so long and espite begging for one, wasn't given a CS. This was only a matter of years ago.

That isn't common practice here, Beryl. In fact, I would have found the hospital I attended very interventionist and I doubt very many people at all go overdue there at all. Sadly my baby daughter died ( not the hospital's fault, she died of SIDS) and from my experience on the threads here for bereaved mothers, not all babies are born safely in the UK either.

Things have moved on certainly - wothin the Irish culture and norms and values. The constitution doesn't reflect this though, have a look here

Things have moved on certainly - wothin the Irish culture and norms and values. The constitution doesn't reflect this though, have a look here

Yes, but that was written in 1922.

Yes, but it is still the foundation of all law in Ireland, and it could be ammended but it hasn't.

Chipmonkey :(
Beryl - that really isn't common practice here at all. Your poor friend.

But we usually only change the constitution in order to change the law. We have equality laws, in fact, the right to breastfeed in public, for example, was an equality law passed in Ireland before being passed in the UK.
What law would you want to pass before you'd have to change that part of the constitution? Would it be worth another bloody referendum?

I know . She laboured for over 30 hours.

@springforward the experiences are very different but the catholic church in england is increasingly influenced by the irish catholic church and it really pisses me off.

Irish catholics wouldn't put up with that amount of influence from the english catholics, not matter how benign. and irish catholic influence is not benign.

A really good post from usuallydormant - I was going to make the same basic point about the difference between the English and Irish churches, but wouldn't have been able to provide the same level of detail. But you only need to read James Joyce to get a feel for the cruelty of the institutions run by the Catholic church in the 20th century.

There's also an interesting class issue. One of David Lodge's novels, The British Museum is Falling Down, is about a young Catholic married couple in England in the 1960s struggling with the rules on contraception and living in fear of another pregnancy. Apparently when Auberon Waugh reviewed it, he said it was nonsense, and that English Catholics never took any notice of the rules on contraception. Lodge's response was that the upper-class experience in England and the working-class experience were very different - presumably the working-class Catholics being much more influenced by the Church in Ireland, because a lot of them had originally emigrated from Ireland.

How is the Catholic church in England being influenced by the Catholic church in Ireland. Genuine question. I have little experiene of one and none of the other!

What you're saying sounds a bit strange ethel? The Catholic church is supposed to be one church united under the pope. Obviously different Catholic countries have different histories but the faith 'rules' and practices are or should be the same wherever.
I can't imagine the Irish way of doing things being used as a template anywhere right now. Not only are the abuses well known, but the church here is a little out of favour with HQ for daring to seem to want to modernise.
Do you have examples as to what you mean? I haven't been a practicing catholic in many years by the way - just interested.

@chipmonkey the clergy are all irish and while that is partly the english catholic churches fault, the type of catholicsm in this country has changed.

many people don't beleive that the catholic church in this country was once way more liberal with regard to personal conscience and liberty, but it was to the point of near revolution in the 70s. Then they dragged in a few irish catholic bishops (see cormac murphy o'connor) and we now have a largely irish clergy reading out dictats against gay marriage in churches. The level of political interference in this way is very 'irish' in my opinion.

It is also very class based as well as @hack says. English catholics are generally far more educated and expect their priests to be far more educated too. Hence Jesuits and Opus Dei having a bit of a strong hold here. Though they ar emore right wing than the catholic poulation imo.

There is a book called Moral Monopoly (sounds like a very boring game played on rainy holidays, but it isn't) which is about the influence of the church on Irish society, and vice versa. It's ages since I read it, but one of the things I took away from it (or made up, who knows) is that the economic conditions in 20C Ireland influenced how Catholicism was inflected as much as anything else.

Eg: you had a largely agricultural economy based on small-ish packets of land; the longer you could delay marriage of young people (and the more strictly extra-marital sex was forbidden), the longer you put off the problem of the livelihoods of the next generation; so socialising was very much in separate sex groups, no such thing as dating, marriages were effectively arranged, and only when there was a way to see how the family could be supported (that is, only when you have a failing senior generation do you allow the men of the next generation to be fully adult, marry, and reproduce, take on the farm, and move in the new farmer's wife to work and produce the next generation)

(as opposed to the US social model in which they had a huge country to populate, having killed off the indiginous occupants of course, so dating was heavily promoted as 16 year olds holding hands leads quickly to 20 year olds getting married and making babies... or 17 year olds making babies and getting married)

Anyway this provides a useful context in which to understand why the Irish version of Catholicism hates sex SO MUCH, and by extension women; but it doesn't answer the question as to why contraception was so extremely unthinkable as a solution to the economic problem of the next generation. The emphasis on forced annual childbirth, for ever, makes no economic sense and makes me think.... they just hate us (us being women). It's the other way around

God I am lucky to live in 21C England. Well done my Grandma who ran away to university in London in 1920-something

Usuallydormant, your post is really interesting. I was wondering if I could ask about the status/attitudes towards infertile couples in Ireland at the height of this "regime". How were they regarded by the Church do you know? I ask this as someone facing primary infertility myself and so thankful not to live in a country where a woman is deemed worthless if she fails to reproduce. Or was it seen as God's decision?