Biomedical Controversies in Catholic Ireland: A Contemporary History of Divisive Social Issues by Don O’Leary (review)

Abstract

Reviews Don O’Leary, Biomedical Controversies in Catholic Ireland: A Contemporary History of Divisive Social Issues (Cork: Eryn Press, 2020). xxix+398 pages. Don O’Leary has put a lot of hard work into this historical account and analysis of the politics and ethics of bioethical issues in Ireland, with its sharp focus on the Catholic Church’s teaching on these issues and its attempts to influence public opinion and legislation. The main issues treated are contraception, abortion, IVF and surrogacy, and medical research using human embryos. A large proportion of the book is dedicated to the repeal of the 8th Amendment, a repeal which the author welcomes. There is a short chapter on Assisted Suicide (in favour of it) and a section of another chapter on ‘Same-sex marriage’ (also in favour). Somewhat amusingly, to this reviewer at least, this latter section is placed right in the middle of a chapter called ‘Assisted Human Reproduction 2013-2019’! This rather gives the lie to the assertion of those who campaigned to ‘de-sex’ marriage and parenting in 2015, an assertion repeated by O’Leary here, that ‘marriage equality’ has essentially nothing to do with IVF and surrogacy. O’Leary writes at great length (398 pages), with many references and a long bibliography (56 pages), giving the strong impression that he has analysed the issues thoroughly. (There is, alas, no index). He summarises and quotes from many Church documents, particularly from the Irish bishops over the last few decades, giving the impression that he accurately grasps and presents the teaching therein. But appearances can be deceiving. Unfortunately, despite it seeming to be a scholarly treatment of a serious theme, there are serious weaknesses in the book’s approach and content, and, notwithstanding its hard work and detail, it lacks fairness and accuracy. O’Leary is quickly dismissive of ‘Christian ethics’, claiming that God’s will is beyond human discovery, if indeed God exists at all. His main evidence for this is the fact that there is disagreement on God’s existence and his will (see x) and on natural law (see xi). He even seems somewhat doubtful about philosophical ethics, as there is an absence of agreement here too (see ix-x). He overlooks the fact that mere disagreement cannot logically prove the absence of truth or our ability to know it. O’Leary tends to regard Studies • volume 110 • number 438 254 Summer 2021: Book Reviews ethics as culturally created, as whatever happens to have been decided by a society as its moral standards. Thus, he reduces morality to convention and public opinion. His very last phrase in the book refers to ‘the fluidity of public opinion on bioethical issues’ and this, it seems to me, is where he thinks ethics is founded. But, as someone once said, one has to be careful to build one’s life on strong foundations (see Mt 7:24–27). For all his attention to Church documents, O’Leary sometimes just gets the Catholic teaching badly wrong. He thinks that the Church’s rejection of contraception is based on contraception being artificial. This is a common error, but one that a scholar should avoid. Janet E Smith has thoroughly debunked the idea in her book, Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later (Catholic University of America Press, 1991). Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae’s main point, in its centrally important paragraph 12, is presented as asserting ‘“the inseparable connection” between sexual intercourse and reproduction’ (27). This suggests a seriously deficient grasp of that encyclical’s teaching. Perhaps O’Leary thinks that the Church considers sexual intercourse to be exclusively for the purpose of reproduction, another common erroneous assumption. Near the end of the book, he presents the Church’s teaching against abortion as based on the belief that an embryo has a spiritual/immortal soul’(334), but this contradicts what he says about that teaching earlier in the book (see 91–93), and also is inaccurate. O’Leary takes an agnostic or atheistic approach, one that is thoroughly materialist. He does not believe human beings have a spiritual soul. He equates the mind with the brain, regarding philosophical arguments for a spiritual soul as weak (see...