Ireland, Abortion, and Democracy
By Patricius Anthony
TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site
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Copyright 2018 P. Anthony. Reproduction prohibited without authorization.
Last revised: 06/09/18
By a significant margin, the Irish people have voted to repeal the Eight Amendment to the nation's Constitution, which protected the unborn. A considerable number (66.4%) of the 21.5 million who casted ballots did so in the affirmative. While many were surprised at the percentage of support, it must not be forgotten that Ireland voted to legalize "same-sex" marriage in 2015, and most recently elected an openly sodomite prime minister ("Taoiseach").
A number of commentators have rightly pointed out that the legalization of infanticide in Ireland is the outcome of the Second Vatican Council, the Irish clergy's participation in the paedophile scandal and other assorted crimes, and the lack of a strong admonition by the odious head of the Conciliar Church, Pope Francis, condemning anyone who voted for the measure. All of these points are valid and have contributed to the tragedy that will now sentence many of the unborn to premature and gruesome deaths.
Yet, few, if any analysts have pointed out another contributing factor for not only what just took place in Ireland, but similar outrages that have repeatedly occurred throughout Western societies. Abominations such as abortion, the legalization of "same-sex" marriages, sodomite adoption of children, the acceptance of divorce and remarriage, and the breakdown in general morality have come about under Democracy, which has been the dominant governing order of the Western world since the end of WWI.
The Left has many times used Democracy, with its inherent defects, to achieve its ends against, many times, the majority will. Not that the majority is sacrosanct, but Democracy has been trumpeted as the best method for the expression of the people's will, yet, it has been thwarted by the Left when it goes against its causes.
Not only has the Left achieved much of its political agenda through the "democratic process," but it has used Democracy to destroy and/or reduce the natural authority figures and institutions of society – the Church, the family, fatherhood, and marriage.
Surprisingly, those on the Right, which includes many traditional and conservative-minded Catholics, have failed to see the rather obvious connection that Democracy has played in breaking down the moral fabric of society. Not only have they failed to understand the relationship, but a number believe that through it the tremendous social ills that plague Western society can be remedied.
Ever since Vatican II, the Conciliar Church has embraced Democracy and with it the welfare state. It has been the welfare state, a pillar of democratic rule, which has taken over many of the duties and obligations that the Church once performed. This, of course, has contributed mightily to the Church's decline throughout society.
The deterioration in all sectors of Western society – education, living standards, morality, music, art, literature – and how the Left has used the system for its own nefarious ends has evoked a number of illuminating critiques of democratic governance over the past few years.* The latest takedown of modern democracy comes from Christophe Buffin de Chosal in his thought provoking book, The End of Democracy.**
In regard to Ireland, Buffin de Chosal's insights can easily be applied to explain, in part, how a once Catholic people have been corrupted and manipulated to the point where they would convincingly vote to allow the slaughter of unborn babies.
Unlike what has been taught to impressionable grade and high schoolers and naive college and university students, democracy is not a protector of individual liberty or an upholder of the natural law. Instead, if a majority of either voters or a legislature passes a measure, it does not matter if the initiative violates the natural or, more grievously, the divine law. In this sense, democratic government is more akin to totalitarianism as Buffin de Chosal trenchantly writes:
The very foundations of democracy are of a totalitarian nature. Democracy is the system in which anything is legitimate from the moment it is wanted by the majority.... In democracy, the guarantee of general consent ... supports the decisions of the political power and justifies them to such an extent that the democratic government considers itself exempt from assuming the consequences of its acts. It has the backing of the majority, who gives it cover and whose will it is simply carrying out. [pp. 57-58]
There is no limit on the number, or to what extent, laws can be made in a democratic environment. The legislature is omnipotent. Buffin de Chosal points out:
Democratic parliaments can make and undo laws as they please, and their scope of action is unlimited, which is logical since nothing must be an obstacle to the will of the self-ruling people. It is not strange, therefore, to see the state regulate domains which are within the realm of tradition and antecedent to it.... It should not be surprising that the modern democratic state decrees that the human fetus is not a human being. [p. 59]
Totalitarianism did not end with the fall of Soviet Communism and the Eastern Bloc, but is alive and well in the supposed freedom-loving Western nation-states, as Buffin de Chosal describes:
The democratic state can euthanize the elderly and the demented.... It can enable homosexual couples to adopt children. It can infringe on private property and tax without limit. The natural law does not constitute an obstacle for it. It can regulate everything, change everything, and even envisage reshaping man himself, through education, the media, the law, and advertising. Its power is limitless.... [p. 60]
Whether a law, a policy, or a regulation is moral or not, Democracy cannot determine. "Democracy is a system," asserts Buffin de Chosal, "that bases its decisions on the number of votes, on quantity rather than quality. It is a system that has no fundamental understanding of the concept of goodness." [p. 129] The Irish vote on the legalization of abortion is a prime example of how modern democracy functions in this manner. That a law which would "liberalize" one of the gravest of sins - willful murder - passed in a supposedly Catholic country, demonstrates just how insidious the democratic system actually is as Buffin de Chosal shows:
Democracy, in its decision-making process, does not seek the good, but numbers. Or rather, being unable to define the good, it surrenders its discovery to numbers, so that the good in democracy becomes what pleases the greatest number. This fundamental relativism is the basis of democracy. It fits into a belief system where the very notions of truth and goodness are inconsistent. [129]
Most political measures, when they are passed through the legislature or by referendum, are initially conceived and pushed through not in response to a groundswell of popular support, but are achieved by a determined and persistent minority. Insightful social theorists have always understood this defect and to Buffin de Chosal's credit, he makes it a part of his refutation of Democracy. "As long as democracy has existed," the author maintains, "every means has been devised so that the ‘self-ruling' people have in practice almost nothing to say." In fact, democracy in practice is almost the opposite of what its proponents claim it should be: "In democracy, reality is contrary to what the principles proclaim: one can say that the majority almost never wins. Democracy is not the system of the majority, but that of the most powerful minority, and it has this power not simply due to its numbers, but also and above all due to its organization." [p. 31]
Like the rest of the Western world, Ireland has succumbed to the mirage of the democratic ideal and, with it, has adopted almost every Leftist cause célébre that has appeared on the horizon. If Ireland is ever to become a Catholic land again, it must not only expunge the Novus Ordo from its midst, but it must do away with the destructive form of government that it has adopted or else continue on the path to perdition.
*See Hans Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed (New Brunswick, NJ.: Transaction Publishers, 2007); Erik von Kuehnelt, Liberty or Equality (Front Royal, VA.: Chrstendom Press, 1993). Both books Buffin de Chosal cites.
**Christophe Buffin de Chosal, The End of Democracy, trans. Ryan P. Plummer (U.S.A.: Tumblar House, 2017).