BIRTHRIGHT
The Pro Life Campaign is a non-denominational lobby group, drawing its support from a wide cross-section of Irish society. The Campaign promotes pro-life education and defends human life at all stages from conception to natural death. It also campaigns for resources to support and assist pregnant women and those in need of healing after abortion.
Positively Protecting Life
PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT SHOULD NOT LOSE HOPE
Pro Life Campaign volunteers outside the Dáil during the final vote on the abortion bill
After the final vote in the Dáil on the abortion bill, Labour TDs clapped. Fine Gael TDs did not. It was a revealing moment. Labour was celebrating after a 20 year campaign to introduce abortion. Fine Gael on the other hand had just broken a solemn pre-election promise not to introduce abortion. Many of the Fine Gael TDs were also feeling uncomfortable for allowing themselves be bullied and browbeaten by the Fine Gael leadership into voting against their consciences. Despite the Taoiseach’s insistence that the new law was about protecting women’s lives, this is not the case. Medical treatments to protect women’s lives were always permitted. The new law was introduced to appease Labour and because the Taoiseach was not prepared to defend innocent unborn human lives.
And it is a truly barbaric law – for the first time in Ireland’s history, an unborn baby can be destroyed right up to birth, based on a threat of suicide even though the Government knows there is not a shred of medical evidence to support it. The road back will not be easy but the strength and resolve of the pro-life movement that emerged in recent months is the kind of foundation that will ensure this unjust law will eventually be overturned. And when the chips were down we saw Lucinda Creighton and others vote against the bill. They may be few, but the effects of their historic witness should not be underestimated. They kept their word. Democracy rests on this. We won’t forget them.