Save the Eighth | Defend Life

This week, on May 25th, voters from all across Ireland will walk into the polling booths to decide whether or not to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which illegalises abortion in most cases. Needless to say, this referendum is huge, particularly to me, so I thought I should share you some important things to consider as you or someone you know heads into the polling booth to change the future of the Irish nation. They are as follows:

1. Abortion Discriminates: Though many pro-abortion advocates like to argue that talk of discrimination shouldn't be brought into this debate, perhaps it's because the reality doesn't look good for their cause--in neighbouring Britain, 90% of babies with down syndrome are aborted. In Denmark, that number is at 98%. In Iceland, there has been literally not a single child with Down Syndrome who wasn't aborted. Let's clarify what that means. All babies with a prenatal diagnosis for Down's Syndrome in Iceland were aborted. That's eugenics. Quite literally--abort a child until you arrive upon a "perfect one." Some individuals, such as Pete Seeger, have literally called disabled babies "like animals," in their attempt to justify the reality that abortion has resulted in the persecution of the disabled.

2. Abortion Kills: Perhaps I should let Caren Ní hAllacháin, a nurse herself, explain: "I believe the government has put together this abortion proposal without fully consulting with medical practitioners and without fully considering what legalising abortion can mean for medical staff, even for those who do not carry out abortions. I was an agency nurse in Sydney Australia in the early 90s and I was on a ward one night when a woman had come in for an abortion. She was 22 weeks pregnant and had been told her baby had a chromosomal abnormality. I wasn’t looking after her directly but I was on the ward. The other nurse had gone for a break. I went into the sluice room and I saw the baby, a 22 week old baby boy, in a kidney dish in at the sink where all the clinical waste was flushed. He was small but he was perfect. You could see his toes, his hands, he seemed like he had blond hair. He was the full size of the kidney dish and he was alive. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, he was breathing. I was a young nurse and I did not know what to do. Because this was an abortion I wasn’t allowed to intervene, I couldn’t get help for the baby, I couldn’t hold him or comfort him, or get oxygen for him or ask anyone to help him live. To see that baby trying to breathe, and nobody helping him, was so distressing and it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I had to leave the sluice room, and I had to leave the baby there and that was the hardest part of all because I felt I had abandoned the baby. He was a child, he was a human being. That same evening I heard the baby’s mother weeping in her room, she was inconsolable. I wondered what she had been told, and if she was advised to abort her baby because he was considered imperfect. There is no dignity in abortion, there is no respect in it, there’s no justice in it. I fear for nurses like me if this abortion proposal is passed, and for the culture it will create in Irish hospitals. I fear that doctors will be expected to sit in judgment on the value of a baby’s life because of a suspected abnormality. There is a heart-breaking reality to repealing the 8th amendment and legalising abortion that is largely being ignored. I never want any nurse to see the heart-breaking reality that I saw."

3. Abortion Doesn't Save Women: Ireland has one of the lowest maternal rates in the developed world (6 deaths/100,000 live births), significantly less than several developed countries with legalised abortion, like the UK (12 deaths) and the United States (21 deaths). And, in the opinion of the vast majority of physicians, abortion is not needed to save the life of the mother. Furthermore, in cases where it is, the Eighth Amendment does not illegalise abortion. Repeal's claim that the Eighth Amendment endangers lives is, in this regard, nonsensical, especially considering the very real life of the baby.