Is voting prolife still relevant in 2020?

  

Voting prolife still matters.

Because the Dáil is not finished discussing or voting on the right to life.

Did you know the bill which legalised abortion in Ireland starting in January 2019 is to be reviewed after 3 years, which would be within the next Dáil term?

The minister for health must review the 2018 abortion bill within the next few yearsI’m not sure exactly how the review will be done, but one possibility is an Oireachtas committee tasked with recommending possible changes to the 2018 abortion bill (we have had a number of Oireachtas committees on abortion).

Or related issues could arise anytime, like regulation of conscientious objection (already, obstetrician posts have been advertised that in practice exclude prolife doctors), exclusion zones, euthanasia legislation and more.

Could it get even worse in terms of legal protection for preborn babies?

Yes – In the UK, for example, it’s legal to abort babies between 24 weeks and full-term because of Down syndrome or spina bifida, which is not (currently) legal here. In France, “obstruction to abortion” is a specific crime. In Canada (whose prime minister Trudeau advised the Taoiseach that abortion was a “fundamental human right”), there have been no legal restrictions for decades on availability of abortion.

Or on the other hand, could we dare to hope that, for example, the Dáil could look again at the legal section saying severely disabled babies can be killed by abortion up to full term which is not legal for healthy babies, recognise this as (lethal!) discrimination on disability grounds, and amend the law to restore equal protection to babies whether disabled or not?

So, voting prolife still matters. Check out and weigh up what your candidates have said, their party’s policy, and most important if they’re already TDs, their track record.
As the courageous Carol Nolan TD memorably said in 2018, “Real healthcare does not have a victim, but abortion does.”

We needed TDs like her to shine a light on what was being done by our government against innocent and defenceless human beings – TDs who were willing and able to oppose it in their words and their votes.

And we still do. Please support them.

 

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Ruth Foley writes