May 14, 2018 – Late last week, I flew with three of my colleagues (one of whom is my wife) to Ireland to work with the Save the 8th Campaign for the last two weeks before the referendum on abortion on May 25, when the Irish people will vote on whether or not to repeal their constitutional amendment protecting babies in the womb from abortion. I’ll be writing about what is going on the ground here, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with the situation in Ireland, I thought I’d lay out six things you need to know about what is unfolding there right now:
1. The 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland grants explicit protection to pre-born babies in the womb, which is why abortion activists need to repeal it in order to implement state-sanctioned feticide. The Amendment reads: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
2. If the 8th Amendment is repealed, the Irish government plans to implement an extremist abortion agenda that includes abortion on demand up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and abortion for the vague reason of “health,” which is intentionally ambiguous to allow virtually all abortions, up until six months or even birth. The politicians and abortion activists are trying to conceal this fact during the runup to the referendum because most of the Irish people do not support abortion on demand. Health Minister Simon Harris has even said that the government will fund abortions should the right to life be repealed.
3. Abortion activists are claiming that repeal is necessary to “save women’s lives,” with variations on that theme featured prominently on most of their placards. In fact, precisely the opposite is true – even according to the very pro-abortion United Nations, which has noted that Ireland is one of the safest places in the world to give birth. Ireland’s Maternal Mortality Rate (which analyzes how many women die during or after pregnancy) is one of the lowest in the world. This fact has enraged abortion activists for decades, as it succinctly exposes the lie of abortion as “healthcare” and proves that abortion is not necessary for the health of the mother.
4. Irish doctors have confirmed time and again that abortion does not need to be legal for them to treat women. Dr. John Monaghan, a consultant obstetrician for over thirty years, reported that, “In my career, I delivered almost 5,000 babies. On not one occasion was I prevented in acting to protect a woman’s life because of the 8th Amendment.” Many GPs strongly disapprove of abortion – 70 percent of them said they wouldn’t provide the abortion pill. At a public hearing in 2013, Irish physicians confirmed that not a single Irish woman had died because of the 8th Amendment.
5. Abortion activists in Ireland are lying in order to achieve repeal, just as abortion activists lied in their quest to get abortion legalized in the United States and elsewhere. For example, take the case of Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 after miscarrying her child at 17 weeks pregnant. The media reported that she had died because she was refused an abortion, a lie that abortion activists are featuring prominently in their Repeal campaign. The fact is that all three official investigations into Hallappanavar’s death found that she did not die from being refused an abortion – a fact that doctors confirmed. Rather, she died from sepsis (blood poisoning), and medical professionals apparently missed at least 13 separate opportunities to save her life.
6. At the moment, Ireland has an exceptionally low abortion rate. In Britain, one in five babies are killed by abortion, including 90 percent of those diagnosed with Down syndrome (this is comparable to other Western countries, as well). Ireland, on the other hand, has an abortion rate of only one in 19 babies – around 3,500 women travel from Ireland to England each year for abortions. This number has been declining for 16 years, and has now dropped by 50 percent – a drop that began prior to the availability of abortion pills via the Internet. According to the Save the 8th Campaign, the 8th Amendment saves the lives of up to 30 Irish babies every year.
The Irish people have voted against repealing the 8th Amendment five times now – once in 1983, three times in 1992, and once in 2002. Five times, they have voted against the bloody agenda of the abortion activists. Now, they will head to the polls for a sixth time – and every single vote will count. For the next two weeks, pro-life activists will be on the phones, knocking on doors, and on the streets talking to passersby every day and every evening. Lives are on the line, and the stakes could not be higher.
Editor’s note. This appeared at LifeSiteNews and is reposted with permission.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
