6,700 babies aborted: numbers rise as government 'sees no evil, speaks no evil' in regard outcomes of law

PRESS RELEASE

   

The Life Institute has described the confirmation that some 6,700 abortions took place in 2021 as a "devastating indictment of a bad law that continued to produce horrific outcomes for both mother and baby".

Spokeswoman Megan Ní Scealláin said that the State was adopting a position of "seeing no evil and speaking no evil" despite the continued rise in the number of abortions.

She said that it was "disturbing" that the Minister for Health was conducting a review of the operation of the abortion act without acknowledging the "shocking rise in the number of abortions since law came into operation in 2019."

"The number of abortions continues to rise, despite assurances from the governmenrt during the 2018 referendum that abortion would be rare," said Ms Ní Scealláin. "Less than 3,000 women travelled for abortions in 2018. We saw 6,666 abortions taking place in Ireland in 2019, 6,577 despite the Covid lockdown in 2020, and now Stephen Donnelly says that 6,700 babies were aborted in 2021."

"Yet he seems to have no plan or even any desire to try to reduce the number of abortions. There is no acknowledgment that terrible mistakes have happened such as the abortion of a baby boy in the National Maternity Hospital after a misdiagnosis. There is no investigation into why we're seeing a dramatic increase in women seeking abortions abroad because the baby has Down Syndrome. What we're seeing instead is a steadfast refusal to even admit there is a problem."

"It's as if the State - and most of the media - have adopted the position of the three monkeys: they refuse to acknowledge in any way that the abortion law has been devastating for unborn babies, that it is indifferent to women's real needs, and that it has produced outcomes which violate the serious promises made to voters in the repeal referendum," she said.

"The death toll from abortion keeps rising, and will continue to do so until this government stops acting as if abortion is a social good. No reasonable person wants more abortions to take place yet we see that campaigners are pushing to scrap the 3-day waiting period which has been shown to reduce the number of abortions taking place annually by up to 18%. 

"Figures released in response to a parliamentary question from Carol Nolan suggest that, in 2020 alone, almost 20% of women who attended GPs and clinics seeking an abortion subsequently changed their mind and did not go ahead with the procedure. Contrasting the number of initial consultations for abortion - 8,057 in 2020 - with the 6,577 abortions carried out that year suggests that more than 1400 women had changed their mind and did not go ahead with an abortion," she said. 

"Similarly, in 2019 7,536 initial consultations were provided while 6,666 abortions took place, suggesting that some 870 women changed their mind during the 3 day waiting period. So its very likely that we could expect a rise in the number of abortions taking place if the waiting period was scrapped. And the obvious question is why on earth any reasonable person would want that?" Ms Ní Scealláin asked. 

"The truth that abortion campaigners want to ignore - or supress - is that most people do not see abortion as a good thing. Most people, because most people have some compassion and some common decency, would prefer if less abortions, not more, took place."

"Stephen Donnelly needs to wake up to this reality - and start taking actions to offer women a better answer than abortion," the Life Institute spokeswoman said. 

    

   

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