The Referendum Commission, chaired by Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, launched its public information campaign today ahead of the referendum on May 25th. The Commission is meant to provide impartial and factual information during the campaign. Ms Justice Kennedy says it is not the role of the body to debate the merits or the arguments on either side but to provide an independent, neutral account of what is being proposed. Toward that end, the Commission will distribute a booklet to every home across the country and a website, refcom2018.ie, will be launched offering guidance on the question people will be asked.
Ms Kennedy’s opening advice is that the forthcoming referendum is not a vote on the legislation that the Government have proposed to replace the Eighth Amendment: “Laws are made by the Oireachtas. You are not being asked in this referendum to vote on any particular law relating to the termination of pregnancy”. While this is true from a strictly constitutional perspective, it does not take into account a political perspective, which would recognises the effect of a Yes vote would be to implicitly consent to the proposed legislation allowing abortion unrestricted up to 3 months and for mental health reasons up to six months.
Longtime feminist campaigner, Nell McCafferty caused shock and dismay when she questioned some of the centrally held theses of the pro-abortion movement. Speaking at the Women in the Media conference in Ballybunion on Saturday, she said: ““I’ve been trying to make up my mind on abortion. Is it the killing of a human being? Is it the end of potential life?” She said she could not answer the question. “But it’s not that I’m unable – I am unwilling to face some of the facts about abortion.” She went on to say that “the pro-lifers are right” that allowing terminations at the 12-weeks stage of pregnancy means the dismembering of babies in the womb.
She was roundly attacked on social media by pro-choice campaigners.
She recalled the 1983 abortion referendum campaign, when “the pro-lifers were going around showing videos and telling us all that babies are being dismembered in the womb through abortion. “I thought, ‘Nonsense.’” However, she said she recently googled what a pregnancy looks like at 12 weeks. “They [the babies] suck their wee thumbs and they have toenails, fingernails and arms and legs.”
She said that in an abortion “they scrape the contents of the womb. The pro-lifers are right. Out come the wee arms and legs, and I thought: ‘Oh God, is this what I am advocating?’”
Ms McCafferty was speaking during a discussion entitled: “Celebrating 100 years of the vote for Irish women: Would the Irish suffragettes be happy with the progress to date in securing equality?” and she then compared the abortion to the mass slaughter at the Somme. She said: “Abortion was beyond our consciousness and here we are, 100 years after slaughters like the Somme and places like that, offering abortion on request.”
A group of GAA figures, including Tyrone manager, Mickey Harte, launched the GAA Athletes for a No Vote campaign in Dublin on Saturday. Gaelic Athletes for Life said the Government’s proposals on abortion are not inclusive and “seek to exclude one group of people – the unborn – from society”. The group said its members “respect and cherish women. We support them, and we believe that as a society we have much more, so much more to offer women than the death of our children”. The GAA as an organisation said it will remain neutral on the issue of the Eighth Amendment.
A new student-led pro-life campaign is calling on younger voters “not to vote blind” in the abortion referendum on May 25th. The #OurFuture campaign, which describes itself as a “young, secular voice for keeping the Eighth Amendment”, seeks to challenge some of the “misconceptions around what a repeal would mean” and to educate students on the State’s abortion legislation, says campaign spokeswoman and former UCD Students’ Union president Katie Ascough.
Ms Ascough says the #OurFuture campaign aims to present the case for protecting the Eighth Amendment in “a concise, fact-based way” and then to leave it up to people to make up their own minds on the issue. “We’ve found that when presented with the realities of repeal and when the soundbites of the Yes campaign are challenged, people are really concerned about exactly what the introduction of abortion into Ireland would mean.”
One hundred lawyers from across Ireland have issued a statement calling for a “No” vote, saying that the government proposal would introduce abortion on demand, and would remove all constitutional protection from the preborn child.
Signatories to the statement included Aindrias Ó Caoimh, Senior Counsel, and Former Judge of the High Court and of the European Court of Justice; and Iarfhlaith O Neill, Senior Counsel, and Former Judge of the High Court and one-time Chairman of the Referendum Commission.
The Statement says the Eighth Amendment respects the right to life of mothers, and protects the life of the unborn only to the extent that such protection is consistent with the life of the mother. If the Amendment were repealed then the proposed abortion legislation that would follow “would allow the life of the unborn to be ended for any reason up until twelve weeks, and far beyond that on grounds which have led to abortion on demand in other jurisdictions”.
“It is clear, therefore, that what is being proposed is not simply abortion in exceptional cases but a wide-ranging right to abortion”.
The Statement was widely welcomed by pro-life groups.
The latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll has shown a sharp drop in support for repealing the Eighth Amendment. Asked if they would vote in favour or against removing the Eighth Amendment, 47 per cent of voters say they will vote Yes, while 28 per cent said they would vote no. This represents a nine-point drop in support for repeal since January. Those who said they were not sure how they would vote were at 20 per cent, an increase of five per cent since last January. Three per cent said they would not vote and one per cent refused to give an opinion.
Responding to the poll, spokesperson for Savethe8th, Niamh UiBhriain said it confirms that the more people get to know about the consequences of a Yes vote, the less likely they are to vote for repeal. She noted that a third of those currently saying they will vote yes believe the proposal for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks goes too far. “Most importantly, we believe that when they find out that this proposal would also allow the abortion of a healthy baby, on UK style grounds, at 6 months gestation, many of those voters will reconsider their votes,” she said.
The Love Both campaign welcomed the poll and said the findings are “a devastating blow to the Government’s referendum proposal.”
A woman who died following a late-stage abortion procedure was discharged from the clinic despite vomiting and swaying so much she looked “drunk”, an inquest has heard. Aisha Chithira, 31, travelled to England from Ireland to have an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic in London, in 2012.
She suffered a tear to her uterus during the “blind” procedure performed under anaesthetic, as a surgeon struggled to dismember the 22-week-old foetus and remove the parts from the woman’s womb.
Afterwards she vomited in a stairwell and complained of feeling unwell to her husband, but was helped into a taxi by staff at the clinic. They had told her she could not stay overnight. One of the nurses denied they had pressured her to leave because they had wanted to go home. Corinne Slingo, representing Marie Stopes, said: “The taxi driver says he saw his passenger walking out of the building. He was quite shocked, she didn’t seem with it at all.
“She looked like she was drunk.” Reading from a statement, she added: “The nurse got her in a hug and she said ‘don’t do that, you will break my bones’.”
A sex education Bill co-sponsored by hard left TD, Ruth Coppinger, passed the second stage of the legislative process yesterday when it was approved by the Dail without being put to a vote. The Bill, if passed, would force schools to teach a certain model of relationships and sexuality education regardless of ethos including about abortion. A minimum of 10 TDs must want a vote for one to take place, but only two deputies rose to oppose the bill when it was put the the House. It will now be sent to a committee for closer legislative scrutiny, although, because it is a private member’s Bill it is likely to languish without progress.
One of the main campaigning groups against repeal of the 8th amendment, Love Both, launched their campaign in Dublin yesterday. Numerous speakers hammered home the point that repeal would be followed by “abortion on demand” and the only way to stop that would be to vote “No”. Love Both legal consultant Caroline Simons said if the Eighth Amendment is repealed, “Ireland will go from being a country that protects unborn babies to one of the most extreme abortion regimes in the world”. She continued: “The Government’s referendum proposal is even more frightening than England’s abortion law, where 1 in every 5 babies loses his or her life to abortion. If repeal happens, the Government is committed to legislating for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks. The proposed legislation also allows for abortion on vague and undefined ‘health’ grounds, up to viability and even up to birth where the baby has a possible terminal illness and in other circumstances as well”.
Ms Simons said that voters need to be aware of the extreme nature of the abortion regime thay would get post-repeal. “Voters who support abortion in so-called limited circumstances need to know that what they hope for with repeal and what they’d get are two entirely different things. A vote for repeal is a vote for abortion on demand. It didn’t have to be this way. The Government could have chosen to amend the Eighth Amendment for so-called hard cases, while leaving some form of protection for unborn babies in the Constitution. But instead they opted for a proposal that takes away all meaningful protections from unborn babies and allows abortion on demand”.
She concluded with a plea: “The only way to stop this from happening is to ‘VOTE NO’ on 25th May”.
Fianna Fáil has said it will not support a Solidarity private members’ bill on sex education in schools that would trample the right of schools and parents to decide for themselves the content of such courses.
The ‘Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill’, which was debated in the Dáil on Wednesday, purports to guarantee to students a right to receive factual and objective relationships and sexuality education without regard to the school’s ethos and would contain provisions for education on consent, on different types of sexuality and different types of gender, on methods of contraception, and on abortion.
Previously, the the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment recommended a review of sexual health and relationship education in primary and post-primary schools, colleges, youth clubs and other organisations.
Fianna Fáil’s education spokesman Thomas Byrne said he was concerned that the Bill would result in changes to the “characteristic spirit of schools” and had been drafted without consulting education partners. He said that curriculum issues should not be set in legislation: “we have a principled objection to this Bill on the basis that Ireland has never legislated in law for a curriculum of any type”. He added: “We have never put in law what should be taught in our classes. We have left it to teachers and other experts to decide, and politicians have not got involved.”
