I awoke one morning this month confronted with a large, red, black and white poster, clearly designed to alert me to some hysterical cause. Little did I know at that point that it was only one of 4 on my street alone; with 60 others dotted across Cork and Munster - I’ve seen them with my own eyes in Fermoy and Rathcormac. €60,000 has been spent on these posters, apparently; though whose money paid for them remains uncertain.
To evoke an immediate emotive response, the billboards prominently feature large images of foetuses in utero, despite UCC’s stem cells looking more like microscopic grey rice. They make a claim of ‘lethal research in UCC’, strong words indeed, more akin to Nazi human experiments than poking needles into lifeless goo. As the stem cells in UCC’s research are imported from abroad, this ‘lethal research’ claim is incorrect and misleading - the stem cells are gathered from situations where ‘the life/death decision has already been made’ - that is, the same criteria for cadaver research. As you can imagine, claims that medical research on donated bodies by UCC students and research partners was ‘lethal’ would be thoroughly misleading. This is, of course, exactly the purpose of the campaign.
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Posts Tagged ‘politics’
Youth Defence Spread Lies About UCC Stem Cell Research
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009The TD and the Paedophile
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
You might remember a recent controversy in Cork (and indeed, nationwide) when an elected representative of the Labour Party found herself at the centre of a scandal because of her apparent support for a convicted paedophile, Trevor Casey, in a case involving her own constituents. This letter was sent at the time and used by radio and newspapers, but I present it here for posterity. Deputy Lynch went on to defend her stance, before issuing an apology, albeit at the behest of Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. The incident served to illustrate the ignorance and insensitivity that rape cases are treated with in Ireland, but I hope that victims everywhere take heart from the public uproar that followed; for once, the silent majority in support of the victims was not silent. If the result of the trial or this show of support encourages victims to come forward and not be afraid to seek a prosecution, it can only be a good thing.
