Harris asked to resign by No side heckler
AN anti-abortion campaigner attempted to confront Health Minister Simon Harris at a Yes campaign event yesterday.
The man – who has been identified as campaigner Tim Jackson – previously staged a hunger strike outside Leinster House when the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment was meeting late last year.
As the cross-party event drew to a close, Mr Jackson began to heckle Mr Harris, asking him if he will resign. Labour senator Ivana Bacik attempted to drown him out by leading the room in a round of applause, but Mr Jackson still con- tinued to shout at the group of ministers, TDs and senators, asking the room if anyone wanted ‘to vote for a politician’s right to life’. He asked loudly: ‘Is it okay to vote on who lives and dies? Any answers?’
Mr Jackson was then asked to leave, and outside he also attempted to confront Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall of the Social Democrats.
Meanwhile, t he doctor who chaired the inquiry into the death of Savita Halappanavar said yesterday that Ireland must vote Yes in the referendum to right a serious wrong. Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran said Ireland was a just and compassionate society, but that an amendment in the Constitution had resulted in that compassion not being extended to women who need to end a pregnancy that endangers her health or her life.
‘People in Ireland have the opportunity to right a wrong, to better protect the health of pregnant women and to ensure that doctors can provide the best possible care to women in Ireland,’ he said.
Prof Arulkumaran headed the Government-backed inquiry into t he death of 31- year- old Ms Halappanavar, who was admitted to hospital suffering an inevitable miscarriage when she was 17 weeks pregnant. She died in hospital in October 2012.