Both sides give their opinion on the upcoming referendum
Abortions are a tragedy but a reality and need to be safe
YES
Abortion. It’s a controversial word in Ireland. It’s a word that at best, makes people mildly uncomfortable, while at worst leads to full-blown shouting matches. And yet, there are Irish women having abortions every day. They may not happen on our soil, but make no mistake, abortions are a reality for women in this country. Neither side in this argument will deny that on average 9 women per day travel to receive an abortion, nor that 3 women avail of illegal online medication to facilitate their own abortion at home. These are undeniable, undisputable facts. The current system is broken, it does not work and it has never worked. A change is needed.
I graduated from medical school eight years ago. In that time, I have worked in seven Irish hospitals, I have worked 36-hour shifts and I have worked 100-hour weeks. I have felt myself close to breaking several times over the years. It is a draining, demanding job. But, it truly is a privilege to practise medicine. More often than not, I find myself coming home with a smile on my face when I think about the day’s work. An average day for a doctor can have an incredible impact on many, many patients. I have always and continue to find my job deeply fulfilling and satisfying. However, the most frustrating part of my job is when I can do nothing to help a patient in need. Perhaps I can’t figure out a complex diagnosis, or I can’t perform a tricky procedure necessary at the right time. These times when I don’t serve my patients well are my lowest points. However, when it comes to the all too common story of an Irish woman in a crisis pregnancy, I am truly, truly ashamed. There is a simple solution, which because of the eighth amendment, we as Irish doctors are not able to access. When I hear my obstetric and GP colleagues tell me their hands are tied when attempting to treat their most distressed patients, I am outraged. How did we get here? How are we still here?
Picture this, a young girl discovers she is pregnant and panics, her instant reaction (as it is with most problems) is to turn to the internet and google the answer. She knows that abortion is illegal in Ireland and she discovers a company that will send out an abortion pill within a matter of days. She knows this too is illegal but goes ahead anyway. The pill arrives later in the week. She has no idea the complexity of the chemicals in the pill, has no idea if it is safe. She does not know of any potential side effects but in pure desperation goes ahead and takes it anyway. She then sits, and waits..
Can any of us imagine doing this? When was the last time you ordered a drug online rather than asking your doctor? When was the last time you attempted to perform a complex medical procedure on yourself without supervision? I will tell you a secret, your doctor wants to be able to help you through this situation. We want to provide you with all the options available and guide you to the best choice that’s right for you. We want to help you through what may be the most difficult experience of your life. Right now, we can’t do that because the 8th Amendment exists.
Abortions are indeed a tragedy, but they are a reality. They need to be safe, they need to be legal and they need to be made available to Irish women. That’s why I’m voting ‘Yes’ on June 25th, and I sincerely hope you vote Yes with me.
Dr Douglas Mulholland Specialist Registrar, St. James’s Hospital Gorteen, Inniskeen, Dundalk, Co. Louth
Government asking us to completely delete all rights of unborn children
The referendum on May 25th is absolutely not about limited abortion in hard cases. The Government could have put that sort of referendum before us. But it decided not to. Instead the Government is asking us to completely delete all rights of unborn children from the Constitution. They want us to write them a blank cheque for whatever abortion law they want, no matter how extreme. And an extreme abortion law is exactly what they intend to pass should we vote “yes”. Minister for Health Simon Harris has already published a draft of the abortion law that will be tabled if the referendum passes. It allows for completely unrestricted abortion throughout the entire first 12 weeks of pregnancy. From 12 to 24 weeks (six months) of pregnancy abortion will be permitted on vague ‘mental health’ grounds. The ‘mental health’ ground allows for abortion on demand in Britain, as everyone acknowledges. So Simon Harris’ abortion law will allow for virtually unrestricted abortion up to 6 months of pregnancy.
It will even allow for abortion up to birth in various cases, for example where the baby has a severe disability and where ‘ mental health’ is ‘immediately’ at risk. Simon Harris tries to avoid questions on this but his own proposed law contains no gestational limits for abortions in these cases.
This goes way beyond hard cases. It is abortion on demand and abortion up to birth. Virtually every child that will be aborted if the referendum passes will be a perfectly healthy child of a perfectly healthy mother. Our abortion law will be similar to Britain’s abortion law, and in Britain one baby is aborted for every four that are born. That’s almost 200,000 abortions per year, or 8.8 million since the law came into effect. Don’t let the Government and Simon Harris claim that they had to propose this type of abortion law. They didn’t. To deal with the 40 or so hard cases a year they are pushing a law that will lead to a minimum of 7,000 abortions a year and, if we match the British abortion rate, up to 14,000 abortions a year. Their proposal is totally disproportionate. They could have proposed any number of more restrictive alternatives. But ul-
NO
timately they didn’t want the child in the womb to have any rights at all that could stand in the way of them legislating for abortion on demand.
The ‘yes’ campaign are trying to deflect attention away from how extreme the referendum proposal is. So they are claiming that the 8th Amendment in the Constitution ties doctors’ hands in giving women necessary care in pregnancy. This is completely false. Ireland, with the 8th Amendment, is one of the top six safest countries in the world for women to give birth in. According to international data we are significantly safer than both the U.K. and the U.S., both of which have abortion on demand.
The misrepresentations by the ‘yes’ campaign have been roundly criticised by both Dr. Mary Holohan, a consultant obstetrician at the Rotunda Hospital, and no less than five former chairpersons of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. They point to our world-leading record in maternal healthcare and they also point out that doctors in Ireland are completely free to save women’s lives, even if it means the baby dies due to their intervention. Of course individual doctors sometimes make fatal mistakes, as they do in every country, but they cannot blame the law for their mistakes. Sometimes doctors are too busy looking for excuses and not upfront enough to take professional responsibility.
With the 8th Amendment we remain a world leader in maternal care and we have easily the lowest abortion rate in the E.U. The 8th Amendment saves thousands of lives each year. That’s something that politicians and campaigners cannot ignore.
Getting rid of the 8th Amendment completely will have a drastic effect. Our GP clinics and hospitals will become home to abortion clinics and abortion theatres. Abortion will be a routine part of our under-resourced health service, and we, the taxpayers, will fund it. Children with disabilities will be disproportionately vulnerable to being aborted. 90% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in England every year. Abortion on demand will be normalised and we, the citizens, will never again have the chance to directly influence our abortion laws.
The Government are asking us to vote ‘yes’ to an unnecessarily extreme proposal. They want us to trust them with a blank cheque for abortion legislation. The only way we can stop abortion on demand is by voting ‘No’.
Mary Murphy, Bryanstown.