Labour pledges to repeal the Eighth Amendment
LABOUR has pledged to have a process leading to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment underway by summer if re-elected to government.
Speaking in Labour’s headquarters in Dublin yesterday, Minister for Communication Alex White would not set a deadline on a referendum but said it would be delivered in the ‘early part of the next government’ if Labour is re-elected.
The Labour party is proposing to replace the effective ban on abortion in Ireland with legislation that would allow for terminations on the grounds of risk to life, risk to health, rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality.
The Eighth Amendment currently enshrines the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn.
Fine Gael has proposed holding a citizens’ assembly within six months of re-election before deciding if any referendum takes place.
Minister White said that many people in Fine Gael were ‘deeply reluctant’ to agree to the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill in 2013, legislation which he described as ‘very limited’.
Labour senator and Trinity College legal professor Ivana Bacik said the draft legislation the party has endorsed is ‘fully in line’ with the 1967 Abortion Act in the UK.
‘It’s effectively the same law that currently meets the needs of the thousands of Irish women who travel to England every year,’ she said.
She denied that the regime in the UK amounts to ‘abortion on demand’, insisting that legislation requires a test on the health of the woman by two medical professionals.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin urged voters to demand answers.
He said: ‘Let politicians have the courage also to say where they stand up on this issue.’
Minister White said that the Archibishop comments that candidates ought to be clear an hones were ‘reasonable’ adding, ‘that is exactly what we are doing as a party and as candidates in this election.’