We need to go into referendum with our eyes open

SIR, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar assured Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau that Ireland would be holding a referendum on our prolife laws in the coming months. Surely, it can only be right that by the time we vote on the Eighth Amendment we have educated ourselves fully on the issue so that we know what we are actually voting for.

By that time we should know the development of the human in the womb; that, from the moment of conception, a unique individual human being is now with us. That, at 21 days after conception, their heart beats. That at nine weeks, they have their own finger prints. And so on.

We should all know how an abortion is performed. In Justin Trudeau’s Canada for example, abortion is allowed for any reason, at any time. What does abortion look like at seven or eight months?

And what will dismantling the Eighth Amendment look like in practice? What will our abortion laws look like? What will our cut off point be? Who will decide that?

In Britain babies are aborted for being female. There, 90 per cent of babies with Down’s Syndrome are aborted. How do we decide which unborn person is afforded legal protection in the womb?

Ultimately, when we vote in the referendum, every one of us is being given the power to decide who has the right to life; who lives and who does not.

Surely, we have to go into this with our eyes open, knowing everything we can about abortion before we cast the most important vote of our lives, and of the lives of Ireland’s future unborn children.

Sincerely, Marie Donnelly, Gneeveguilla.