PRO-LIFE LAUNCH
The mother of a baby with a life limiting condition told a Sligo Pro-Life meeting how her child survived for months after he was born. Yvonne Donoghue gave an emotional address to the meeting in the Clayton Hotel last Saturday evening, describing her experience and journey in carrying a baby with a life limiting condition, how she coped in deciding to let the baby be born naturally and letting it live until his natural death a number of months after his birth.
Ms Donoghue was joined by businessman and pro-life advocate Declan Ganley, grandniece of 1916 leader Eamon Ceannt, Dr Judy Ceannt and Bernadette Smyth of Precious Life in Northern Ireland. Mr Ganley told the Meeting, which was organised by the SLIGO for LIFE organisation, that politicians could not be trusted if the 8th Amendment was repealed.
“Political leaders on a journey can’t tell us when their journey has ended. They’re all over the place and can’t be trusted to the degree that we take away the rights of pre-born girls and boys and instead entrust life or death power over those lives to Politicians who bend with the wind.” “Ireland is a beacon of light for human rights. We are the one place that a global campaign has failed to snuff out the rights of preborn human individuals. We will win this, because the Irish people, when it comes to it, will not strip one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world of it’s recognition that the pre-born are human too and should not have their right removed so they can be lawfully killed,” he told supporters. He likened the referendum campaign to the abolition movement: “When we vote to save the 8th, history will look back at this and see as a key turning point, like William Wilberforce and The Abolition Movement, which was the beginning of the end of Slavery.” He urged everyone to work hard and attend the Major Life March in Dublin on Saturday the 10 th of March and to spread the message that to Repeal the 8th is to introduce the killing of the pre-born girls and boys in Ireland. Yvonne Donoghue told how when she got the news about the problem with her unborn baby after a scan it was a major shock but she decided that her child deserved to live and that she as a mother had no right to destroy the new human life in her womb. After the birth of her baby she loved, cuddled and cradled it for months until he passed away in a peaceful death. She said she had many happy and poignant memories of the time she spent with her baby, and believes she was absolutely right to let her baby live and die naturally.
Bernadette Smyth spoke of her campaign to keep abortion out of Northern Ireland over the last 20 years. She has been supported by the D.U.P but not Sinn Fein. She said abortion is “killing the innocent who are given no choice. Abortion is against the 5 th Commandment.”
She said the pro-choice side rarely if ever mention the baby and that they view it as human life. She asked what choice does the baby get? She highlighted that over many years she has helped many girls and women in crisis pregnancies to overcome fear, shock and trauma and have kept their babies or given them up for adoption rather than abort them. She said that those who abort their babies suffer terrible loneliness and sadness which is visible in their eyes.
Dr. Judy Ceannt, spoke of her strong opposition to repealing the 8th Amendment from her job as a G.P. where she deals with people in crisis pregnancies. She was very passionate in her view that life should be protected from it’s earliest stages in the womb. She is worried that Medical people and Hospital staff would have to carry out terminations if the 8th was repealed. She said doctors were trained to do no harm but now the Irish Government was planning to ask them to participate in the killing of human lives. The meeting started with the showing of a D.V.D. called “Keep The 8th” produced by the Donegal Pro Life Group. Copies are available free. Phone 089 2469599 or email donegalprolife@gmail.com It covers 11 Topics including testimony from a former doctor who performed thousands of abortions but is now promoting life.