Radio Transcript

LIFE ISSUES NO. 2208

IRELAND AND ABORTION

Well, friends, the Irish government is at it again – it is trying to legalize abortion in that country. In the Republican south, abortion was always forbidden. Back in the mid `80s, there was a referendum on abortion, and the people there overwhelmingly voted that abortion should remain illegal.

A wimpy worded referendum was tried again in '93, and the voters again kept abortion illegal. This followed a ruling one year it by the Irish Supreme Court. It had ruled that a 14-year-old girl who claimed to have been raped (a claim never proven) wanted to travel to England for an abortion. The court ruled that she could do that, and then moved further to say that abortion could be allowed where the pregnancy seriously endangered the woman's life or health.

Since then, both of the major parties have flirted with further legalizing abortions but have been afraid to do anything. Pro-aborts have urged drafting legislation to implement the court's decision. Considering this, there has been an unprecedented response, spontaneously – would you believe, 10,000 citizens have written to their parliament in the last two years opposing legalization. And no one asked them to do it. The vast majority of these letters have expressed a wish for a referendum that would achieve an absolute prohibition of abortion.

One argument posed is that women have been crossing the Irish Sea to go to Britain for abortions – and that number is now estimated to be about 6,000 a year. The latest, now, has been a report just published by Prime Minister Bertie Aherne's cabinet. It analyzes six different options for “modifying” Ireland's constitutional ban on abortions. These range from drafting a more tightly worded ban to allowing abortion-on-demand.

But his report shied away from actually making any recommendations (I guess he was afraid to). It stated that it hopes that a lengthy document would promote cool headed debate and help to develop a broad, possible consensus.

But the committee offered no deadline for reaching such a conclusion, and it obviously was hesitant to even push for one of them. Speculation has it that probably there will not be another referendum until after the next election, probably three years from now.

And so a standoff. The press and most of government officials want more abortion. Sophisticates in Dublin and some of the universities want more abortions. But certainly a strong majority of Irish citizens disagree and want abortion to remain illegal. They don't want to kill little Irish lads and colleens.

[12/22/99]