✣ Ireland could hold abortion referendum in May
What happened? Ireland could be an abortion-friendly country as early as next summer, after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he wanted the country’s Eighth Amendment referendum to happen in May. The amendment protects the life of the unborn child. Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee has voted in favour of repeal. The committee proposed allowing all abortions up to 12 weeks and later if a mother’s health is deemed to be at risk or if the unborn child has fatal disabilities. What the campaign teams said Colm O’ Gorman of Amnesty International Ireland, which is in the vanguard of the pro-abortion campaign, welcomed Varadkar’s announcement and the committee vote. The vote, he said, along with “recent opinion polls”, had “highlighted the wide-ranging support that exists to reform Ireland’s abortion laws.” Cora Sherlock, of the Pro-Life Campaign, said that the 12-week limit was “plucked from thin air. It reveals a frightening disregard for the right to life of the most innocent and defenceless members of society, namely unborn babies.” Sherlock added that “thankfully”, the parliamentarians “won’t have the final say on the Eighth Amendment. The electorate will have that responsibility and I am confident they will vote to keep it.” What the commentators said Kevin O’ Reilly wrote in the Irish Times that Ireland’s political process was being manipulated. Of the “experts” called before the committee, “something like 25 are on record as being in support of abortion”, while only four were neutral or opposed. “An instrument of democracy is being used in a manner that is anything but democratic in order to remove the constitutional protection for the most defenceless members of Irish society.” At opendemocracy.net, Patrick Chalmers argued it was pointless to keep the Eighth Amendment, saying the law had merely “exported” abortion, with 170,000 women and girls having abortions abroad between 1980 and 2016. But David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, said the committee’s proposals would “make our law even more radical than the UK one”.
