On Saturday, pro-choice activists took to the streets of Dublin to campaign to ‘Repeal the Eighth’ – that is, the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution which extends the same right to life to the unborn child as to the mother. They want to extend to Ireland much the same abortion provision as is available in mainland Britain. The fit, the fun and the angry were out in force – 30,000 of them, by their own estimation – with slogans like, “Keep your filthy laws off my silky drawers” and “Women are Furious”. The usual.
The demonstration was led by Abortion Rights Campaign member Angela Coraccio, who said the Eighth Amendment is “an instrument of torture” and described the country’s current abortion law as “barbaric”. That gives you a pretty good flavour of the rhetoric that characterises this campaign.
The Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution was introduced in 1983 by the then PM, Garret Fitzgerald, to ensure that Ireland would give equal constitutional protection to the foetus as to the mother. Interestingly, he was from the same party as Leo Varadker, the present Taoiseach, or premier, who describes himself as pro-life but has held off from taking sides on the referendum he has called for May or June next year, just before the Pope’s planned visit to Ireland.
Back in 1983 the debate was over whether the amendment went far enough – Dana, Ireland’s former Eurovision song contest winner, led a campaign for even greater protection for the embryo/foetus. This time it’s focused on the question of whether the foetus does indeed have human rights comparable with his or her mother’s.
There has been a consultative commission to advise the Government on what might follow the repeal of the Amendment, but it was so weighted towards pro-choicers as to threaten to be a hindrance to any bid to repeal it. Essentially, its probable recommendation for the referendum is for Irish law to replicate British law in respect of abortion, but this is less likely to gain popular support from the electorate as a bid to ban abortion in extreme circumstances, for instance, after rape.
An interesting facet of the current debate is what’s absent from it. That is, the Catholic Church. The succession of child abuse scandals has largely discredited the church as a player in national politics. The most recent referendum which approved gay marriage was significant for the fact that the bishops were largely absent from public debate. The church is so traumatised by the aftershock of abuse scandals, it has effectively acknowledged that its intervention in issues like abortion could do more harm than good.
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