The Pro Life Campaign has said the Tánaiste’s stance on abortion is “inconsistent” and that it is “confident” about the forthcoming referendum.
The anti-abortion group gave its first formal response to this week’s Cabinet announcement that a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment will be held later this year.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is one of a number of senior Government figures who have expressed reservations over the 12-week limit.
“The Tánaiste has said he is in favour of repeal but against legislation,” Prof William Binchy said on Friday. “What we’re trying to do today is to emphasise that that stance is inconsistent.
“If you are against abortion on demand, you have to be against the proposal which is now being presented by the Government.”
The Pro Life Campaign said that, without the Eighth Amendment, “unrestricted abortion on demand is a virtual certainty in the short to medium term”.
‘Exclusive power’
The campaign said repealing the Eighth Amendment would hand “exclusive power to politicians” on abortion and that “experience shows that politicians breach this trust”.
“It would be nice if it were a situation where you could repeal the amendment and then you could get round to thinking about how our society and law should deal with abortion, it would be nice if you do that,” Prof Binchy said.
“But the model which has been taken by the Government which is going to be proposed to the people is going to be a model of repeal and handing over then to the politicians the power to formulate abortion laws.
“What we say, and we say it with confidence on the basis of the experience throughout the world that in that situation it can be confidently predicted . . . that in the short to medium term you will have abortion on demand.”
Prof Binchy said this was not “scaremongering or accusing politicians of bad behaviour”, but that “the political process of its nature will cater for special interests and compromises”.
Caroline Simons made reference to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s comments that abortion will be “safe, legal and rare”.
Ms Simons said “abortion is never safe for the unborn baby whose life is intentionally targeted, and once legalised, it is not rare”.
“The animating spirit behind the repeal movement envisages a legal regime that is more extreme than UK-style abortion. It is worth examining what this has meant on practice.
“In England and Wales, it has meant that one in five of all babies’ lives are ended in abortion and that 90 per cent of babies diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome are aborted.”
Testimonies
Ms Simons said the Citizens’ Assembly and Oireachtas committee hearings put the Eighth Amendment “on trial” and that not “a single day” was set aside to all the lives it has saved or testimonies of women who regret their abortions.
The Pro Life Campaign said their campaign will be civilised, informative, factual and it will challenge the “so-called facts that will be put forward by the campaign to Repeal”.
“I’m confident that if the journalists give us a fair crack of the whip to present our side of the story that the confusion about what actually repealing the Eighth Amendment would mean will clear up and I think that can only benefit our campaign,” Ms Simons said.
Cora Sherlock said she is “absolutely confident” about the forthcoming referendum.
“I do believe that the people will vote to retain the right to life of every human being in the Constitution which is the rightful place for it,” she said.
Ms Sherlock said it was “early days” in the campaign to take too much notice of opinion polls.
