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SEVERAL TDS AND abortion rights activists intend to campaign for a referendum that would repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution – which gives equal right to life to a mother and her unborn baby – in the autumn.
The amendment, passed by 66 to 33 per cent in a referendum in 1983, has provoked considerable controversy in Irish politics and society over the last three decades leading to the X Case judgement that permits abortion where the life of a mother is at risk including from suicide.
United Left TD Joan Collins said that from September onwards, the repeal of the amendment, also known as Article 40.3.3, will be raised by her and other TDs as part of an active campaign.
“We will be raising it in the Dáil, the need to repeal it, have a referendum on it, which needs to happen,” she told TheJournal.ie this week. Independent TD John Halligan also said repeal “needs to happen”.
Those working with various abortion rights groups have also indicated their intention to be part of a campaign but the government is unlikely to push for any referendum in the wake of the difficulties faced getting the X Case legislated for in recent weeks.
However, the Labour Party leader and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has acknowledged that the current legislation is not perfect and falls short in the case of women who are the victims of rape or incest.
“The people voted in 1983 to insert an equal right to life of a mother and her unborn child into our Constitution, and now, thirty years later, we giving effect to that right. Nothing more. But nothing less either,” he told the Dáil during the recent lengthy debate.
Article 40.3.3 reads as follows:
“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.”
Recently released State papers have shown how the government was warned internally that the 1983 amendment could in fact allow a constitutional right to abortion as opposed to prohibiting it as campaigners for it had intended.
This transpired when the Supreme Court verdict in the case of X, a 14-year-old girl who was suicidal as a result being raped and becoming pregnant, gave an explicit right to a woman to have an abortion in circumstances where there is a real and substantial risk to her life, including risk of suicide.
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Out of all the possible abductions journalists never help anything. They are there to report the truth not be used as ransom or intimidation.
Hope they find him soon.
I expect that this journalist’s ‘crime’ was to depart from the cosy consensus that is the false reporting line of Western allied syndicated media. Possibly he may have attempted to present a balanced narrative, thus implicitly criticising the terrorists of the Al Qaeda Sunni Islamic so-called ‘Free Syrian Army’.
https://en.rsf.org/syria-threat-of-imminent-execution-of-12-12-2012,43785.html
imagine going back after being abducted once. it’s a terrible story, but what a 24 carat plonker.
I’d call that courageous. To go back into a warzone after being kidnapped before must take balls of steel and a real belief in what he was doing. I hope he is released again ok. Whether he risks a third bite of the cherry is another question…!
Imagine getting back in a car after you’ve crashed? Or imagine going back to sport after getting injured? How crazy can you get?
Hell, why should we risk anything at all? Why not just stay at home in protective cocoons of comfort and never take chances at anything in case we are pushed out of our comfort zones?
I understand the sentiment, Pádraig, but without meaning to cause offence, it’s dangerous thinking. This man did a brave thing, both in going out in the first place to provide us with the vital service of knowing what’s happening in conflict zones, and in overcoming his capture to go back. Enormous respect, and hoping for his safe return.
Not only is that last phenomenally racist, it also shows a wanton disregard for the intelligence and ingenuity of journalists reporting from environments such as Libya and Syria. Nobody goes to report from a war zone without being aware of and accepting the risks, and being willing to take them in the name of the vocation that is journalism. To suggest otherwise is to disrespect the ongoing work of others in the profession, and to similarly disrespect the legacy of the likes of Tim Hetherington and Marie Colvin, who lost their lives in its pursuit.
the cheek of you implying I’m being racist or disrespectful.
Free the journos and burn the bondholders!!!!!
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