Irish Pro-lifers Campaign to Keep Abortion Illegal

by John P. McCarthy
Crisis Magazine

Ireland may well become the first country to introduce abortion by popular vote. This would follow a thirty-five year campaign by abortion advocates to overcome a 1983 amendment protecting the life of the unborn.

The Irish Constitution can be amended by the electorate in a referendum. A referendum put to the people is proposed by the national legislature which consists of two houses: the popularly elected Dáil Eireann and an upper house, the Seanad, consisting of appointed and/or indirectly elected members, and with primarily delaying legislative powers.

In a referendum scheduled for Friday, May 25, Irish voters will be asked to approve or reject a proposed amendment that would delete an existing constitutional provision (Article 40.3.3), itself approved by the electorate in 1983. Article 40.3.3 is referred to as the 8th Amendment because it was the eighth to the 1937 constitution. It reads as follows:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practical, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

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