A Guide to The Eighth Amendment Referendum

1. What is Amendment about?

On Friday, May 25 2018 the people of Ireland will vote on whether or not to repeal Article 40.3.3 of our Consitution. That article, known as the Eighth Amendment, was voted into the Irish Constitution by a referendum in 1983, and it guarantees constitutional protection for the life of the unborn child. The article states:

“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 practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

The article gives equal constitutional status to the mother and the unborn and effectively bans abortion from taking place legally in most scenarios in Ireland. If it is repealed the Irish government will introduce new legislation; draft proposals for such legislation include unrestricted abortions up to twelve weeks and abortion on “health” grounds up until viability, with no gestational limits applying at all in cases of so-called “fatal foetal abnormalities”.

2. Who is behind it?

In the thirty-five years since losing the 1983 Referendum campaign (by a two to one  majority) promoters of abortion have engaged in a sustained campaign in Ireland to remove Article 40.3.3 from the Irish Consitution. This culminated in the setting up last year of an Oireachtas (Parliamentary) Committee to make recommendations regarding the introduction of abortion in Ireland. The Committee – which manifested a clear pro-abortion prejudice from the very outset, leading to a walk-out by several pro-life members. Tellingly, the Committee voted not to retain Article 40.3.3 before even hearing from all the witnesses which they had planned to call, and a full two months before publishing their full recommendations. In the end, they found that the current constitutional provision prohibiting the termination of pregnancy in Ireland was “unfit for purpose and that constitutional reform is necessary.” They voted in favour of a referendum on the matter and the government swiftly announced a May date for the Referendum – perhaps in haste to ensure it took place before the visit of Pope Francis in August.

The pro-repeal campaign is led by the “Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment” – an umbrella group representing many political and activist groups. Only two left-wing political parties, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin, have imposed a pro-abortion policy on their parties, but the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and the various government ministers have been openly campaigning for the Repeal side. There is unsurprisingly a strong pro-Repeal bias at work in the country’s main media outlets also, which routinely fail to cover stories which would portray the pro-abortion lobby in unflattering terms, or which would show the public the full reality of the ‘abortion culture’ which has developed in the UK and elsewhere.

The pro-life campaign to maintain the wording of the Constitution as it stands is led by two groups: the Pro Life Campaign (PLC), and the Life Institute (who are running the “Save the 8th” campaign) both established in the 90s. Both are very professionally run organisations – a fact borne out by their capacity to bring tens of thousands of people onto the streets for pro-life rallies and marches. They have been assisted by a third group called One Day More; a support group made up of parents who received poor pre-natal prognoses for their babies.

3. The arguments

The Repeal campaign is firmly based on two planks: a feminist critique of the status quo, and an implicit denial of the humanity of the unborn child (usually termed “embyro” or “foetus”). The Repeal campaigns holds that: “The amendment equates the life of a pregnant woman with that of an embryo or foetus and has created an unworkable distinction between a pregnant woman’s life and her health …. The presence of the Eighth Amendment in the Irish Constitution is a source of discrimination against all women living in Ireland. It creates a discriminatory health system where a pregnant woman only has a qualified right to health care” (from the Repeal campaign website: www.repealeight.ie). Most of the pro-repeal rhetoric is centred on women – something echoed in poster slogans such as “Trust Women” (which it must be admitted is surprisingly patronising of women, quite on a par with talk of women as “the weaker sex”).

The pro-life campaign seeks of course to affirm the humanity of the unborn, while recognising the genuine hardship often caused by unwanted pregnanies – and hence their principal slogan: “Love Both.” The campaign seeks to address the pro-repeal dichotomy between the well-being of the unborn, and the health of women.

4. Who will win?

The latest polls (Behaviour & Attitudes/Sunday Times and Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI of late April) show roughly the same result: 62% to 38% in favour of repeal (with undecided voters removed). The question is whether the pro-life campaign can convince at least 13% of that 62% to change their minds, within a month. It is certainly not impossible and the pro-life campaign is engaging in a very vigorous campaign around the country – by all accounts much more vigorous than their counterparts. What we may be seeing is that the core point of their argument – the humanity of the unborn – is getting through, but as of yet this has not translated into a decision to vote to safe-guard unborn life.

An interesting case in point is that of the Nell McCafferty a renowned Irish feminist and founder member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement. Recently she told a Women in Media conference in Co Kerry that she was trying to make up her mind on abortion: “Is it the killing of a human being? Is it the end of potential life?” She said she could not answer the question. “But it’s not that I’m unable – I am unwilling to face some of the facts about abortion.” She said she recently googled what a pregnancy looks like at twelve weeks. “They [the babies] suck their wee thumbs and they have toenails, fingernails and arms and legs.” She said that in an abortion “they scrape the contents of the womb. The pro-lifers are right. Out come the wee arms and legs, and I thought: ‘Oh God, is this what I am advocating?’” And yet despite this she confirms that she will vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment since she believes abortion is still necessary. However who knows what will happen in the polling booth on May 25?

5.  What is the role of the Catholic Church in all of this?

It has been claimed that the Catholic Church has been very quiet in the referendum campaign. In March the Economist carried a piece under the heading “Catholics are keeping a low profile in Ireland’s abortion referendum campaign” in which the claim is made that – in contrast with the 1983 pro-life campaign – “overt Catholicism has all but vanished from the [current] scene”. The article goes on: “Although the religious affiliations of many activists are, of course, known, contemporary pro-life groups like the Iona Institute, the Pro Life Campaign, the Life Institute, and Save the 8th present themselves as non- or multi-denominational, or simply leave such matters vague.”

This is a very strange claim to make, though perhaps it is a case of wishful thinking by the Economist. Firstly, as far as I can remember, the pro-life campaign in Ireland has never been confessionally Catholic, but genuinely pluralist. Furthermore, there was manifestly no shortage of “overt Catholicism” on the March 2018 “Rally for Life” in Dublin (rosaries, statues, banners, nuns, monks and priests – including yours truly). Nevertheless the pro-life campaign rightly affirms that abortion can and should be rejected on human rights grounds, regardless of overt or covert religious beliefs. Furthermore eleven bishops have released pro-life pastoral letters over the past few months (for example, to list but a few: Two Lives, One Love, Bishop Denis Brennan, 15 April 2018;  Supporting a Culture of Life, Bishop Denis Nulty, 15 April 2018; Life is both sacred and a human right, Bishop Francis Duffy, 23 March 2018; Every human life is sacred, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, 6 March 2018).

That said, since abortion has been firmly framed as a women’s health issue the opinions of men, and even of women beyond child-bearing age, tend to be rejected tout court. Understandably then the chief public proponents of the pro-life cause are younger women (such as Cora Sherlock, Caroline Simons, Sinead Slattery and Lorraine McMahon of the PLC and Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Save the 8th campaign). These women are presenting the pro-life position in a very attractive and articulate manner.

Priests certainly have not been silent on the matter in their parishes, even though this has drawn criticisms which are sexist and even ageist. One notorious case has been that of the former chair of the Oireachtas abortion committee, Senator Catherine Noone who, following Easter Sunday Mass in the national shrine of Ireland tweeted: “Easter Mass in Knock Basilica this afternoon with my parents – an octogenarian priest took at least three opportunities to preach to us about abortion – it’s no wonder people feel disillusioned with the Catholic Church.” The tweet led to an angry out pouring across social media and was eventually withdrawn.

6. What will the result mean for Ireland?

A loss would obviously be a source of terrible discouragement to many in Ireland and beyond; it would come as a confirmation Ireland’s commitment to the stripping away of centuries’ held values, coming as it would hot on the heels of the introduction of same-sex marriage through our last referendum in May 2015. Victory while sweet, would not be without its own potential pitfalls. It would exacerbate what was termed after the 1983 Referendum “the second partitioning of Ireland” between conservatives and liberals in moral matters, and would invariably deepen the existing hostility towards the Catholic Church so prevalent in many sectors of Irish life. This would add a new and problematic dimension to the planned papal visit to Ireland in August for the World Meeting of Families.

Another very serious and worrying consequence of a successful campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment would mark a fatal step in the move away from the natural law model of law towards a positive law model on the part of the Irish State. There have been several significant steps in this direction over the past few years, most notably the gradual dismantling of the natural rights of the family vis a vis the State, culminating in the “State take-over” of marriage through the same-sex marriage vote of 2015: the State no longer “acknowledges” marriage as an institution that antecedes law, but now sees itself as the arbiter of marriage. Similarly, and more dramatically, a pro-abortion result would see the State – for the first time in its history – become the arbiter of who should live and die. Once this principle is established, the who, when, where and why of who should die is only a matter of legal quibble. No doubt the element of ageism voiced by some within the pro-repeal milieu would soon find full expression in a campaign to introduce euthanasia into Ireland.