EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about abortion, Islamic State and missing people.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. Paul Fanshawe went out of his way to get the top spot. This technique won’t work next week, I’m afraid:
Don’t be ridiculous. Anybody with a small amount of advanced IT knowledge can inflate their own green thumbs ad infinitum.
He got 4,917 green thumbs – mostly from himself.
2. A lot of you were annoyed when a little girl became the subject of online abuse after appearing on the Late Late Toy Show. Mindfulirish had this today, getting 3,298 likes:
Stupid people are everywhere — ignore them. Have a great Xmas.
3. Some 1,607 of you approved of Brendan Hughes‘ comment on the same story:
Brave brave people to abuse a child like that. I don’t see why their names and handles can not be published for all to see.
4. Under a story about a mother and children who are about to be evicted, Paul Wallace wrote a comment that got 1,147 green thumbs:
She hasn’t paid anything towards her mortgage in two and half years…if I’d didn’t Pay my rent tomorrow for December I’d be out on the street for Xmas too.
5. David Browne had this to say about a woman whose injury claim was thrown out when photos of her posing at international body sculpture competitions and exercising in a gym were shown to the court:
Should be charged by Gardai now for attempted fraud.
That one got 1,172 likes.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Belfast court rules abortion should be available in cases of rape and fatal foetal abnormality (303 comments)
2. Dáil passes Bill to make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT teachers (287 comments)
3. Paul Bradford: “There are no such babies as babies with fatal foetal abnormalities” (278 comments)
4. LISTEN: Planned Parenthood gunman surrenders after at least five police, six civilians shot (241 comments)
5. Poll: Do you support airstrikes against Isis in Syria? (224 comments)
Standout comments of the week
During the week, TheJournal.ie ran a series of articles about missing people in Ireland.
Under a story about Gussie Shanahan – a 20-year-old who went missing in 2000, Jonathan McCoy wrote:
I worked with Gussie in Dell up until he went missing, he was one sound and funny young man. Hard to believe so much time has passed.
Dave Moran also knew Gussie. He commented:
Remember Gussie from Dell too, really nice lad, hard to believe after all this time nothing has come to light…shockingly sad for his parents..
Alan Ball shared his own story of a friend who went missing:
A close friend of mine disappeared several years ago.He seems to have just vanished.Many people have asked after him and nobody has seen or heard of him since he walked out of his flat one day,left the front door open and was gone….It is a very strange feeling to be close to a person that goes missing and the questions you ask yourself go unanswered,about how it happens….
Another story from the series, about a woman whose body washed up in Wexford, prompted Carol Keane to write:
My parents were involved in the recovery of the body of a man in the early 2000’s (?) in the Shannon Estuary. That man has never been identified. He was given a state burial in Ennis. Another member of the rescue crew entered a competition on Clare FM a short time after to win a headstone. The competition called for people to write their own epitaph. He wrote one for the unidentified man and won. “All you people of Co. Clare, kneel down here and say a prayer, for the man from God knows where”. Very sad to think that there is no name on that headstone.
During the week, a court in Belfast ruled that abortion should be made available in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality.
This prompted Renua Ireland Senator Paul Bradford to say: “There are no such babies as babies with fatal foetal abnormalities. There are babies with serious, profound life-threatening and life-limiting conditions but they are still human beings.”
As a result, Arlette Lyons, co-founder of Termination For Medical Reasons (TFMR), left a comment about her own experience of being pregnant with a daughter who had a fatal foetal abnormality:
Senator Bradford I would ask you to read my personal story and then rethink your insensitive comments. This is about choice. Many women choose to continue and that is their choice which should be supported. Others feel it is best for their baby and for them and their family to end the pregnancy.
I have since gone on to have a beautiful little girl called Freya who was born with a cleft palate and many other issues. This is something that you and your party need to acknowledge the difference. Baby Skye 0% chance of Survival baby Freya born with special needs. Hope that you can understand the difference.
MARCH 5TH 2012
Myself and my husband were trying awhile to have our 3rd baby. We found out at Christmas time I was pregnant and were both thrilled as was our 8 year old and 5 year old boys.
At my 13 week scan the sonographer recognised there was some fluid around the baby’s head and asked me to call my husband, this is when I knew there was something badly wrong.
My husband arrived and we were sent to see the consultant. After an hour we went into the consultant room for a more detailed scan there we were told that the baby had a cystic hygromma and very likely to have a fatal chromosome abnormality.
We were told that our baby would either die in the uterus or die straight after birth but more likely I would miscarry before 20 weeks. We were told that baby would not live and that there was no hope. The consultant was amazing, compassionate, supportive and sympathetic.
I was offered a CVS procedure (which they can tell what the syndrome the baby has for 100%) which I excepted and we would have the results in 3 days.
I turned to the consultant expecting her to offer us an induced miscarriage or termination and I said so what now?
Her response was let nature take its course or you can go to Liverpool Womens Hospital to have a termination. To say we were shocked was understatement firstly to be told your baby has no chance then only to add to the pain that we would have to travel to Liverpool for help. We were devastated and so so angry that we could not receive the treatment we needed here in Ireland.We waited for the results but I knew in my heart there was no hope. We received the results and the baby had trisomy 13 (pataus syndrome) which is a cruel horrific syndrome not deemed compatible with life.Our babies other organs had not developed correctly either This was the most devastating news we could have received..To walk around with your little baby growing inside you knowing that at any moment she could die is like being in a horror film. So frightening so devastating.
We were not going to allow our baby suffer, We were not going to allow our living boys suffer and finally I was not going to allow myself suffer a potential further 28 weeks. My suffering at the time was unbearable.
So we made the decision to travel to the women’s hospital Liverpool. The maternity Hospital gave us all the information we needed so myself and my mother made all the arrangements which was a heart breaking task and also having to leave our two boys behind and arrange for someone to take of them. My parents, husband and myself arrived on the Sunday evening and Monday morning I was brought in to have the termination.
The staff were very kind and tried to make the procedure less traumatic for us. I was put under GA. I left the hospital 3 hours later and we arrived back in Dublin heartbroken and devastated Monday night.
I can face the fact that this baby was never going to make it but I will never get over the fact that we had to leave the love and support of our family friends and the staff from the maternity hospital.
It was all very traumatic and extremely cruel to be sent to another country for the termination.
We were lucky to have access to the money as I know a lot wouldn’t. We wont ever forget the very much longed for loved baby that we lost which we named Skye and I plan to bury the scan photos with my granddad. But I will hold on to the anger of having to travel to another country to receive the help and treatment that we needed so badly at a horrible time in our lives.
I really hope the law changes here in Ireland and no other women or couple ever has to go through what we did.
Her comment became an op-ed piece, under which her father Pat Lyons wrote:
So proud of you Arlette Dad
Under an article about a Santa who went above and beyond to hear a Christmas wish from a little boy with autism, catkins407 wrote:
My guy has just gone literally in for surgery. (I’m waiting in his room) The theatre staff sang him happy birthday. It was last week but he’s milking it. Nurses consultants all sang happy birthday to him. Really nice for him and for me as I’m trusting them with my precious little man.
On an entirely different note, Neal Ireland Hello had this to say about a story on a city in America that smelled like cat pee:
Cats get blamed for everything.
Smelly cat, smelly cat, it’s not your fault.
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