Reflection on Two Referenda

The day after the abortion referendum result, I stood at the entrance to a Dublin shop and surveyed the Sunday newspaper headlines. The mood across all papers was one of celebration. The uniform message might be summarized in this way: “Historic referendum result. Landslide win for the Yes side. Great celebrations. No more lonely journeys for Irish women.” Not a single headline suggested that this might be a grim rather than a wonderful day for Ireland and for future generations of the unborn.

My instinctive reaction in that moment was one of deep sadness. I felt strongly that I was no longer living in a fully free society if all the organs of the press were singing the same song on such a fundamental issue. I did amend my own reaction a little on reflection, by acknowledging to myself that some of those Sunday papers did carry good articles from the “No” side in the referendum.

Nevertheless, there was a basic truth in my reaction: our country does face a grave problem when all the organs of the press are at one, or virtually so, on fundamental issues. This impression of lack of freedom has also been reinforced by the threats made, post-referendum, to the conscience rights of doctors and nurses.

On the Monday after the referendum (28 May), the Irish Times letters page carried the heading, “A resounding and emphatic yes.” This presentation may have brought a smile to the faces of veterans of the 1983 referendum. At that time, the reaction of the paper to the 2 to 1 vote for the Pro-Life Amendment was to talk about “the two nations” and to focus on the size of the “No” vote. In fact, the Yes percentage in 1983 was marginally higher than that in 2018. I do acknowledge that turnout was ten points higher in 2018. Nevertheless, a fair summary might be that there was a clear majority for “Yes” in both 1983 and 2018, with a sizeable “ No” vote on both occasions.

In many ways, however, the No vote in 2018 was more impressive than the No vote in 1983. Back then, the No side had the support of the Government, the national media, the trade unions and a large part of the Establishment, while the Church backed, though it did not initiate, the Amendment proposal. In 2018, the Government, the media, and the Establishment generally all backed Repeal and a much weakened Church, along with the various pro-life groups, supported the No side so that a 34% vote was a reasonably solid achievement, even if deeply disappointing to those of us who campaigned for a No result.

In the aftermath of the referendum, and indeed for a lot of the previous thirty-five years, the media attacked both the Pro-Life Amendment itself and the “vicious” or “bitter” campaign which brought it about. Given that the media has now won its victory on the Eighth Amendment, it might not seem useful to spend much more time discussing the original debate that led to its insertion into the Constitution.

For the sake of historical truth, however, I think that it is important to offer some alternative reflections on the 1981–‘83 debate, particularly when there is such a “party line” on the subject in the media and in academic publications.

On the Monday after the referendum, an Irish Times article by Stephen Collins reported on how an Anti-Amendment Government Minister was targeted “in a particularly vicious way” during the 1981–‘83 debate, including through “toxic” phone calls and “gruesome foetal images” being left at his door. Other prominent people reported similar experiences in the paper. That treatment of the Minister, and any other similar actions during the original campaign, were totally wrong.

Nevertheless, this media account of the 1983 referendum debate lacks balance and fairness. To offer some of my own personal memories, I was a humble canvasser in the same South Dublin hinterland as the former Minister, and in a constituency which eventually rejected the Amendment, and had multiple experiences of courteous interaction, and discussion, with people of a different viewpoint to mine. The same courteous but vigorous debate occurred in my workplace and among friends and at a long AGM meeting of my trade union branch. Spokespeople for the proposed Amendment on TV (like Julia Vaughan and William Binchy) were the epitome of courtesy while I remember the pre-vote intervention of Archbishop Ryan of Dublin as being measured and detailed and as engaging carefully with the arguments.

Abortion is a very difficult and important subject and the debate in the 1980s lasted two and a half years and was very intense. Ireland had never previously had a public discussion on abortion and some on the pro-amendment side were genuinely shocked that some prominent figures apparently wanted to leave the door open for abortion, and reacted accordingly. To say this is not to justify any abusive behavior but to place the emotion of the time in some context.

The media’s concern about vitriol or unacceptable campaigning is actually quite one-sided. The systematic tearing down of No posters by Yes activists received little coverage in the 2018 campaign. Nor has much coverage been given in Ireland over the years to the vitriol and intimidation to which pro-life reformers in Britain, like John Corrie MP or David Alton MP, were subject when they tried to introduce even modest restrictions to the 1967 British Abortion Act.

A good deal of the vitriol that I remember from 1983 actually came from the press, although it is itself so critical of the vitriol of others! Virulent articles come to mind not only in publications like Hot Press and In Dublin but also in the mainstream media. There was a bizarre sameness to the “investigative reports” across various publications on the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign, which strongly criticized a “right-wing” Catholic pressure group, political manipulation and conservative “backlash’. There was just one similar investigation that I can recall of the Anti-Amendment side and there were certainly no media investigations in 2018 of the radical pro-abortion views of Yes campaign leaders.

In 1983, many journalists felt that the “shackles” of Catholic Ireland were being thrown off. The clause on the special position of the Catholic Church had gone from the Constitution, contraception had been legalised, divorce was on the way (though it turned out to be a tougher battle than was perhaps anticipated in the early 1980s), the Pope’s visit had come and gone; and yet now, in the media perspective, a bizarre attempt was being made to turn the clock back to the 1950s by inserting a Catholic clause in the Constitution! Those perspectives help to explain the sheer anger in the media coverage of the referendum – reflected in phrases such as “moral majority” and “moral monopoly” – at the time and since. Some media coverage also reflected inter-generational tensions – young journalists with the benefit of a university education, and huge confidence in their various brands of Seventies socialism, were scoffing at what they saw as the unsophisticated arguments of a previous generation with fewer educational opportunities.

Commentators often talk about the more recent 2015 and 2018 referenda as being a “wake-up” call for the Church. It could be argued, however, that the very biased media coverage of the original pro-life referendum back in the 1980s ought to have been a major wake-up call for the Church then and that we (all of us) failed to respond adequately – for example, by failing to develop alternative media to a sufficient degree.

Obviously, Irish Christians must focus now on the situation we face today rather than on the circumstances of the 1980s. We need to take action in the present in support of women in crisis pregnancies or in support of genuinely pro-life media and, more broadly, in the transmission of the faith. Moving forward also means, however, reclaiming our history – in this area as in many others. While it is very regrettable that the Eighth Amendment was repealed in 2018, it is important to continue to affirm that its insertion in the Constitution in 1983 was a very positive step, which saved many lives and prevented the introduction of a liberal abortion regime in Ireland for more than thirty years.

People may soon begin to re-think their attitudes to the Eighth Amendment as the sheer injustices of abortion legislation become manifest. It is also to be hoped that future generations of Irish people will look back much more positively than the voters of 2018, or our media and political leaders, on the Pro-Life Amendment and its defenders and on its major contribution to Irish society at a time when the social pressures for abortion were so strong, in Ireland and throughout the Western world.