“The media is the main driver for abortion in Ireland,” a leading pro-life advocacy group has stated.

As it prepares to roll out a major information campaign on what it sees as the media’s pro-abortion agenda, the Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has accused the national media of “blatant” bias on the issue.

Writing in The Irish Catholic newspaper this week, Cora Sherlock, PLC deputy chairperson asserts that the media drive in favour of abortion in Ireland “has become so blatant that we simply cannot afford to ignore it any longer”.

“The media avoids stories about the heartbreak and pain of abortion,” Ms Sherlock writes, “[and] they run a mile from scandals like the recent death of a woman from Ireland after an abortion in a Marie Stopes clinic in London. And they go to extraordinary lengths to leave the unborn child out of the picture.”

Ms Sherlock added that politicians are “well aware” of the slanted media coverage of abortion but “everyone inside and outside politics tends to tip-toe around the issue rather than chellenging it openly. That’s not a healthy way to approach a serious matter in a democracy.”

Titled ’33 to 1′ the new PLC campaign takes its name from a recent count of abortion-related stories in the nation’s secular newspapers over a two week period. The short study found that 33 articles in that time supported greater access to abortion services, with just one article backing the pro-life side.

In order to highlight its campiagn, the PLC has announced a public event for March 11 (7-8pm) outside Dáil Eireann.

According to Ms Sherlock: “It will be the start of a campaign to take the message of media bias to every corner of the country.”