On May 25 we will be faced with a simple choice: do we want abortion on demand in Ireland?
The Government is busy trying to complicate the referendum vote, introducing all sorts of unrelated issues into the debate. Government politicians are talking all the time about “trust”. Can we trust them?
Politicians and political parties routinely make promises about abortion and then go and break them. Government politicians are pretending the vote is only about having a limited amount of abortion. But we know that is not the case. The proposed law is before us and it is nearly identical to Britain’s abortion law where one baby is aborted for every four that are born.
Senior Government members want the referendum to pass because they want to delete the right to life of all unborn children from the Constitution. If this happens abortion on demand will be available up to 12 weeks. The Government knows this is extreme, so ministers are claiming that after 12 weeks abortion will be very restricted. We know this is false because we know that abortions will be legal on “mental health” grounds from 12 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Government’s own draft legislation makes this clear. In the UK, 98 per cent of abortions take place on mental health grounds. It equals abortion on demand in practice.
Government ministers are also promising that a passed referendum will not lead to late term abortions happening right up to birth. We know this is false because the Government’s proposed law allows for abortion up to birth on mental health grounds and in cases of severe disability.
Government ministers are also promising that abortion is good for women’s mental health. We know this is false because decades of leading research has shown that abortion increases mental health problems. It even increases risk of suicide and drug dependency. Government ministers are completely ignorant of this research.
Government ministers are also promising that a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum is necessary to improve maternal care in our hospitals. We know this is false because statistically Ireland is already one of the safest countries in the world within which to give birth. It’s safer than countries with unrestricted abortion, countries like England, Canada and the United States.
The one thing Government ministers are not talking about is the reality of abortion. Abortion kills. Its purpose is to end the life of a small, vulnerable human being. It does so either by chemically aborting the baby, or by surgically dismembering the baby, or by injecting a lethal drug into the baby’s heart. There is nothing compassionate about abortion. And there is nothing honest about pretending that a baby in the womb is not alive or is not one of us.
Our Constitution currently protects mother and baby. If we repeal the 8th Amendment and delete the right to life we will be the first country in the world to remove a human right from its constitution.
The only way to stop abortion on demand is to vote ‘No’. The only way to respect the right to life is to vote ‘No’. We should trust our instinct to protect life.
