Dead Baby, Tweeting

I don't believe anyone or any institution has the right to kill a human being.

There was a time in our history when this was harder to justify. Over the centuries, particularly since the publishing of the Magna Carta, when individual rights were enshrined in law, we have come to recognise the fundamental human right to life regardless of a persons circumstances.

These days we still have the death penalty in many parts of the world. Governments struggle with it though, even if the person to be killed has done something awful. The in-canting of the phrase ‘Dead man walking’ as the prisoner begins their last walk on death row has always struck me as a chilling way of reminding us of both the horror and the lack of choice on the prisoners part with what is about to happen.  I want this article (hence the title) to serve a similar purpose.

Everybody that knows me, knows that I fundamentally disagree with abortion. I consider the industrialised abortion years (particularly since the Roe-Wade decision in the US, in the 70’s) to be one of the gravest and most shameful periods of human history.

And we have had some grim periods over the centuries. Witch hunting, slavery, gas chambers, chemical warfare, suicide bombings in public places and so on.

Nothing compares though to the current systematic killing of our unborn - human beings in their most fragile stage of growth. A period where they are voiceless, completely helpless, and entirely dependent on the whim of their ‘nurturers’. We are supposed to be mammals after all, that nurture and protect our young.

We have globally aborted more human beings in the last few decades than were actually alive on the planet in the mid 1800s. Nobody will convince me that this represents human progress.

Abortion, unless the life of the mother is in danger, is illegal in Ireland. The laws in Ireland give equal right to the life of the mother and to the unborn child except in the case where the mothers life is in danger.

So if you are in Ireland and you decide you want to abort your unborn child for other reasons, you travel to the UK (or beyond).

Very recently some women have decided to make this journey whilst tweeting updates on their experiences to the social media world.

This is part of a growing movement in Ireland to ‘Repeal the 8th’ amendment - that part of our constitution that gives equal rights to mother and unborn child.

When I heard about this ‘stunt’ something deep and angry welled up in me. To reduce the decision to kill your unborn child to a series of tweets over the course of a couple of days, in an effort to convince people that it would be far better to have the unborn child killed in Ireland, shows utter contempt for life and for all the decent people on the side of protecting the unborn.

And shame on anybody that thinks this is somehow a brave and courageous act and something that will make Irish society a better place because of it.

Here is a simple thought experiment. Its twenty years from now and a young vibrant human being being is beginning their first foray into traveling the world. They are on a train to London (after getting off a ferry from Ireland) to catch a plane to somewhere warm and exotic. They have time to think and so they start writing a diary about all the amazing circumstances of their lives that have brought them to this point. They reflect on all the wonderful people in their lives, the teachers, the friends and most importantly their family, who have supported them all along the way. They give silent thanks to all that love and support that has made them who they are today. They look forward confidently to taking on the world and making their mark in whatever wondrous ways their DNA enables them to do, via those mysterious helix mechanisms binding their truly unique cell structure together. In all of history, nobody has ever had this DNA structure before and nobody is likely to ever have it again. In that uniqueness they stand alone, in the vastness of the Universe, as a singular, exceptional being of extraordinary untapped potential.

This does not tweet very well. And besides, for the unborn child in the womb of the women tweeting about their ‘journey’, this thought experiment is a moot point. They will soon be ‘terminated’ in a procedure as grim as the burning of a human being at the stake.

As it was for the 1.3 billion people plus that we have aborted in my lifetime. That would be greater than the current population of China to be clear.

Dead Baby, tweeting

A crisis pregnancy is a very difficult situation. There is no denying that. Its particularly challenging if fetal scans show that the growing baby is not well. There is nothing easy about bringing a child into the world if it is not wanted for whatever reason.

Why is it though that we go to extraordinary efforts to protect our children once they leave the womb? There are countless examples of parents going to the ends of the Earth to try to help children with life threatening illnesses like rare cancers and degenerative diseases. This is our humanity in its greatest form, a combination of courage, compassion and conviction.

Protecting our children, caring for children and growing and enabling our children is at the heart of everything that defines us as a species.

And this essential truth is known to all.

Think of the recent picture of the traumatised 5 year old, Omran Daqneesh, pulled from the bombing of Allepo or the picture of 3 year old, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach when his family was fleeing the Syrian war. These pictures evoke a deep compassionate response in us all. These horrors should not be happening to children. We know that and viscerally feel their pain at the deepest core of our being.

So why have we lost this response when it comes to our unborn children?

I’ll tell you why.

We are being told that unborn children are not children.

Tell that to the premature children that survive outside the womb at 21 weeks - 3 weeks earlier than the current 24 week abortion limit in many countries (there are also many countries where there is no upper limit).

We are being told that the unborn child cannot feel anything.

Scientific evidence is now showing that this is untrue. The Neural tube (the building blocks of the nervous system) closes about 3 weeks after conception marking a key stage in the embryonic phase of development of the child. Doctors that perform abortions now routinely anesthetise the unborn child because they simply are not sure when the unborn child feels pain.

We are being told that unborn children are not viable and so cannot be considered human.

This is the weakest argument of them all. We are mammals. We have developed that way so that our offspring require nurturing before they are able to live independently. There is no such thing as a viable baby. Once outside the womb, a baby requires help or it will die.

The fact that the unborn child requires placenta nourishment before 20 weeks is because the lungs of the child are one of the last parts of their physiology to develop. This happens because the unborn child does not breathe air whilst in the womb.

It should not be necessary, but science is proving more and more that the unborn child is simply a human being in a very vulnerable state of growth. New 4D ultrasonic imaging techniques are showing us unborn children sucking their thumb and reacting to stimulus outside the womb even early on in the second trimester.

We are being told that we need abortion to deal with difficult cases like incest, rape and fatal fetal abnormality.

Nobody is denying that these are difficult situations to deal with. Compassion, support, proper long-term care and resources, and providing the best neonatal and post natal care for all, is a far better solution than killing the unborn child. For one, it would make for better services for those people who actually want to have children.

There is also completely ethical justification for using contraceptive methods to avoid the implantation phase of pregnancy which happens about 10 days after conception.

The problem we have however, is that we do not provide the long-term support and resources to help women in crisis pregnancies. We have actually created a society where it is difficult to bring a child into the world and so the option to have an abortion seems now to be an appropriate option when faced with a crisis pregnancy.

We should be throwing our effort and attention into providing those long-term support structures so that we have a society that celebrates the birth of a child (irrespective of the circumstances) rather than the one we have now.

We have created a society which now weighs up taking responsibility for the life of a child versus taking the life of that child and is presenting this as a human right.

An oxymoron if ever there was one.

I hold people like Amnesty International (an organisation I used to have huge respect for) in contempt for perpetuating this sophism.

However, the real problem we have is the following. The difficult cases mentioned above are being used by people who truly believe in mainstream abortion. They see abortion as nothing more than a tool and a resource of convenience that can used at a whim.

They are using these straw-man arguments, to support their main cause, because they are easy emotive problems to raise, they create doubt around the core argument against abortion, which is essentially to respect and trust in the mystery of life, but crucially the arguments deflect people from thinking about the true agenda behind their cause.

Pro-abortionists want what the current system in many States in the United States allows - the right to abort your unborn child at any time during a pregnancy, in any medical facility and for any reason.

So if you really want to know where ‘Repealing the 8th’ ultimately leads, go and research what a ‘Partial Birth’ abortion is.

If you already know what it is and still support mainstream abortion then I respectfully challenge you to question your value system.



GMcD      21/8/16

A Tribute to Mario Marchetti

I was working in MIT Media Lab Europe in 2001, as a Principle Research Scientist, when I met Mario Marchetti for the first time. Media Lab Europe was a collaboration between the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of technology and the Irish Government, to establish a state of the art research center as the anchor tenant in the newly established Digital Hub in the Liberties area of Dublin. The Digital Hub itself was part of a larger Integrated Area Plan designed to bring innovation and enterprise to the Liberties area, where in the past the area had not got the public investment it deserved.

The mandate for Media Lab Europe was to invent innovative technologies to enable and empower people generally. I had the wild idea (I did not think it was wild at the time!) that the lab should support a Computer Clubhouse on its campus, to enable young people in the area to access the same kind of amazing technological tools that we had in the lab, and that volunteer mentors in the lab would teach the young members how to use those tools. The aim was to create confidence and curiosity in the young members whilst giving them real technical skills useful in the Digital Age.

To be fair to the lab, the management supported the endeavour (and actually committed floor space to the entity), with the caveat that it had to be run by another organisation, and that its on going sustainability was not the labs concern.

Intel agreed to fund the Clubhouse for three years but I needed help finding an organisation to run it.

Enter the ‘Hairy One’. (I will explain this later).

I had some limited experience in Youth services (from my rather unorthodox past) and approached the City of Dublin Youth Services (CDYSB) for help.

And it was here that I met the ‘Hairy One’, Mario Marchetti.

So began a wonderful journey which would very quickly become a fantastic friendship.

In our very first meeting Mario eyed me up with that wise and considered stare that was truly unique and, whilst stroking his beard, asked me one key question:

‘The initiative sounds great. Why are you doing this? Please assure me that this is not one big publicity stunt because the people in the area have been let down far too often’

(Or words to that effect)

I was caught off guard. My answer went something like this:

‘If the Computer Clubhouse makes a difference to one young person, who otherwise would not get the opportunities it offers, I would be happy’

And that was it. He gave me a hug! This big, burly man, dressed in biker leathers gave me a blooming hug. It transformed the conversation.

Those hugs were to be the signature opening and closing of all interactions we had going forward.

Mario identified SWICN (the South West Inner City Network) as the organisation that should run the Clubhouse. He setup the meetings with the key people. We arranged a lease. He helped design the governance structure and he provided the full youth services portfolio of CDYSB to support the project. This included mentoring courses, child protection courses, basic counselling skills etc. He even arranged for CDYSB to have a permanent presence in the Clubhouse for the first couple of years, all of which proved crucial for its success.

There were bumpy moments. There was a trip to Boston with the team to ‘learn’ how to run a Computer Clubhouse (the team collectively had decades of youth experience between them!). There was mis-understandings, mistakes made, personality challenges - all typical problems when a new innovative initiative is in its early stages. And through it all the ‘Hairy One’ was there to steer us through the storms.

In that time I came to have the highest respect for Mario.. No problem was ever insurmountable. He brought a calm assured presence to everything. He never lost his cool (I did regularly). He brought vast experience and wisdom to the project when and where it was needed most.

I fondly remember one story where we both had to go to the management of Media Lab Europe to formally reject their notion of only allowing one floor of the temporary building to the Computer Clubhouse.

Just before the meeting, Mario educated me in a relaxation technique that involved some breathing exercises and a half lotus sitting position. I was enjoying the exercise so much that I was still in the half lotus position humming the word ‘om’ when the management came in for the meeting.

We still won our case (eventually)!

Media Lab Europe closed its doors early 2005.

Not many people know this (my family and very close friends do) but I experienced an extremely challenging episode in my life near the end and shortly after the close of Media Lab Europe. I took a very idealistic stand against some really powerful people (and quite honestly extremely nasty and ruthless people) and paid the price. I was held to blame, either side of the Atlantic, for the labs failure when nothing could be further from the truth. The brilliant group of researchers that I had the privilege to work with and lead, were one of the most successful groups in Media Lab Europe. Ideas, inventions and companies have all spun out of that immensely talented bunch of people and I still consider it one of the most stimulating times in my life despite the awful politics.

Whilst I was in the depths, Mario become my unofficial counselor. He would meet me regularly, help me in those relaxation exercises and remind me constantly to look after myself because I was no use to anyone if I was ill. I would get texts at all hours in the night that ranged from funny jokes, to insightful quotes and always the offer to meet up, hug and chat any time I needed it...

He was just a brilliant friend when I needed friendship most.

This is the first time I have put this truth out in the public.

Its a small parting gift to my friend, the ‘Hairy One’.


The clubhouse survived the collapse of Media Lab Europe. And it was in no small measure due to Mario. He championed the project within CDYSB. He convinced the powers there to support it as an innovative project going forward. Little pockets of funding kept flowing in. We found some private funding and some brilliant staff and slowly the Clubhouse began to find its own two feet.

Storm clouds were looming. Public funds were tightening. The youth sector was one of the first public services to really feel the pinch as the financial collapse beckoned.

And in that time Mario kept the Clubhouse visible and valuable to key stakeholders so that it survived. He did it for long enough to allow more long-term public and private funds to ensure its work continued.

All the while our friendship grew.

We would meet for coffee, hug, share life stories, laugh insanely at some daft situation either of us had found ourselves in (and there were many!) hug again and then go our separate ways.

He called me the ‘Clever One’ and I called him the ‘Hairy One’. You might think he was offering me a compliment. He wasn’t. We both knew that our intelligence is not measured by the number of degrees you have to your name. True intelligence, in both our minds, is measured by our ability to manage our emotions and in particular our emotional responses to people and their plight. By this measure he was far more intelligent than I was and so him calling me the ‘Clever One’ was really him asking the question:

 ‘You think you are clever eh?’

I called him the the ‘Hairy One’ because he was. Certainly relative to me. There was no ambiguity there.

In the last few years ago he introduced me to a place called the Sanctuary. This was a project very close to his heart. The Sanctuary is a physical space in the north of Dublin, supported by Focus point, for people to express and deal with emotional turmoil and find inner stillness.

It gives you a real insight into the inner workings of Mario. He really cared about peoples suffering. He genuinely wanted to help. He was constantly on the side of those with no voice and never shy to challenge the structures that created injustice.

He has left us to soon and I am truly devastated. Over the last year we promised one another that we would meet up for the usual session, bookmarked with those trademark hugs, but it never happened. I was in the process of moving my family to Tasmania and I got swamped. I regret not having that meeting and I hope this tribute goes some small way to addressing that.

My dear friend the Hairy One, I hope you are in a good place (stroking your beard with that unique thoughtful look of yours). You left us so unexpectedly, and to soon, but let it be known that you are fondly remembered by us all. We will not forget your wonderful spirit, gentle presence and compassionate nature. You are sorely missed.

It is so true that the quiet, peaceful path makers leave the most tears behind when they depart because suddenly the light is less bright, the path is that little bit harder to traverse and the calm consoling presence we took so much for granted is gone in a whisper.

You were one of those souls Mario. I will truly miss you.

Gary

19/2/15