Disabilities Minister: Yes side will get 60%

‘We won’t have fewer special needs children born’

THE abortion referendum will end with the Yes side on 60%, but pro-choice campaigners cannot afford to be complacent, Cabinet Minister Finian McGrath has said.

The Disabilities Minister also insisted yesterday that repealing the Eighth Amendment would not lead to a ‘decrease in children with disabilities being born’.

And hitting out over the upset being caused to young children by graphic No side posters near schools, Mr McGrath said it was an ‘adult debate’ that children shouldn’t be dragged into.

‘The one view I am getting recently, that is causing a lot of anger from younger families, is about some of the posters up outside schools on the Howth Road and around Marino and Drumcondra,’ the Dublin TD said. ‘People are very upset, particularly Pro-choice: Finian McGrath parents of younger fiveand six-year-olds because they are being drawn into this debate. This debate is an adult debate, and it’s about rights and equality.’

Mr McGrath said he believes the final result of the referendum on May 25 will be 60% in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment, which gives equal rights to the life of the mother and the unborn.

The Minister, who is in favour of repeal, said that he is ‘fairly confident’ of the result, and that he has come to form this opinion largely from feedback he is getting in his own constituency of Dublin Bay North.

He was speaking yesterday at an event with Inclusion Ireland – an advocacy organisation for people with intellectual disabili- ties – where they were backing the Together For Yes campaign.

Mr McGrath predicts the debate ahead of polling day on May 25 will be ‘tough’ and said the Yes side cannot afford to be complacent.

‘It will be a long campaign over the next couple of weeks. But in fairness, I think we have learned from the previous campaigns, there is more about facts and information now than spin – I think that is an important thing,’ the Independent TD said.

The father-of-two also reiterated his view that it is not right for the No side to use disabilities – particularly Down syndrome – as part of their argument, with many pro-lifers claiming that the referendum will open the floodgates for parents to seek abortions based on disability tests on foetuses.

He said: ‘I think it’s important, and I speak both as a minister and also of a parent of a daughter with an intellectual disability, I don’t think it is right to use Down syndrome in this antichoice campaign.

‘It implies that giving people the choice, parents of children with disabilities would have chosen to abort them.’

He added ‘disabled women are often neglected when it comes to contraceptive care and consultation’, and that the situation as it stands for those seeking abortion ‘discriminates against disabled women with mobility issues for whom international travel is more difficult’.

‘Disabled women often neglected’