There is only one chance to get the question on abortion right
TODAY is D-Day for the Oireachtas Abortion Committee, when it will stop asking questions and start deciding what question should be put to the people. The initial listening and research phase has lasted several months and the members have been diligently examining evidence and following up on issues raised in the report of the Constitutional Convention. They have heard from medical experts, obstetricians, legal experts and various campaign groups but, bizarrely, at no time has the committee investigated the position of voters on this issue. We have had occasional declarations from committee members about what they think voters want, but most of these pronouncements have the same scientific basis as De Valera-esque mystical soul searching.
Abortion referendums come around a bit less than once in a decade.
If this fails it may be another decade before it comes around again and therefore there is a serious obligation for the committee to ask a question that at least has a chance of passing.
Otherwise, what has been the point of all this work?
Typically, Irish governments do referendum research only after a referendum has failed, so that they can establish why voters may have rejected the proposal.
On this occasion, there is a strong case to do some pre-referendum research to see what a majority of voters want in the first instance.
Election study
The Irish National Election Study provides a starting point for what needs to be considered.
The study has carried out detailed examinations of voter behaviours and attitudes at elections since 2002.
In 2016, the election study included data from the RTÉ exit poll which has the singular advantage of capturing the attitudes of actual voters.
Although we know from previous research that referendum voters vary somewhat from election voters, in the absence of any other research, the election study provides the best data available.
In the election study, opinions on various issues are measured on a scale of zero to 10 and voters are asked to locate themselves at the point which reflects their views.
For the abortion question, zero represents a total ban on abortion, which is the most conservative position, while 10 represents abortion being freely available to all women and is the most liberal position.
Current Irish provisions on abortion probably sit somewhere around point one.
Abortion opinions
In 2016, 12pc of voters placed themselves at either point zero or point one.
Just 20pc of voters were located on the scale from points zero to three.
At the other end of the spectrum,
46pc of voters were located on the scale at points seven to 10 and some
30pc in the middle ground of points four to six.
The demographic information tells us that on average women are closer to the liberal end of the scale, but the average voters sits at point six, slightly to the liberal side.
Younger voters are more liberal and there is a small social class difference, with farmers having the most conservative views.
Among the parties, supporters of Renua hold the most conservative views and they are followed by Independent and Fianna Fáil voters, all very predictable so far.
The difficulty that arises for the committee is that this is where the information stops.
What we do not know is what points five, six or seven mean to voters.
There have been long discussions about how legal provisions could be operationalised in the cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities, and even in case of any threat to the health of the mother.
There is often a tacit implication that this is the middle point in the debate, but we do not know this from the data that we have available. A Red C poll for Amnesty International found that over 80pc of voters supported abortion in all of the above cases.
It argued that the middle ground is abortion on request within narrow term limits, but we simply do not know for sure if these positions may be more or less liberal/conservative than the position of the average voter.
This matters: the last abortion referendum was defeated by a coalition of liberals and conservatives who outvoted the middle ground.
Referendum campaigns
There have been some very interesting contributions from committee members over the past week. These people have explained that their views have shifted after all of the evidence put before them.
It is important to sound a cautionary note about the difference between a committee hearing and a referendum campaign. Committees are about careful engagement with the evidence and deliberation.
This is similar to the Citizens’ Assembly that also came to a liberal view after listening to similar evidence.
To borrow an overused cliché, campaigns usually provide more heat than light.
Voters often have sincere and deeply held views on abortion, wherever they sit on the issue.
The question will draw from the fundamental values that citizens hold about society and the person.
The wild oscillations that happen at debates on technical issues like Oireachtas Inquiries are quite rare at social and moral referendums.
Attitudes towards abortion have changed very substantially, but this change has been taking place for 30 years.
The campaign is unlikely to shift views much more.
The committee needs to pitch its question carefully; it will only get one chance.
Attitudes towards abortion have changed substantially, but this change has been taking place for 30 years. The campaign is unlikely to shift views much more