10 letters that may help you make up your mind if you are still undecided

Over the last few years, there have been countless letters to the Irish Examiner from those on both sides of the Eighth Amendment debate.

10 letters that may help you make up your mind if you are still undecided

Over the last few years, there have been countless letters to the Irish Examiner from those on both sides of the Eighth Amendment debate. Here are the some of the best to help you make up your mind on how you will vote on Friday

YES- No abortion link to mental illness

I am encouraged that the joint committee on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution has sought clarity, from expert witnesses, on the mental health effects of abortion.

The best research, as highlighted by Dr Anthony McCarthy, when he spoke to the committee on November 8, has not found a relationship between having an abortion and developing mental health problems.

An unintended pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of mental health problems, and the rates of mental health problems are similar, irrespective of whether that pregnancy ends in a termination or in birth. However, the research does show that women who were exposed to strongly negative attitudes toward abortion are more likely to have long-term mental health problems.

In this era of fake news, I hope the facts win out over myths and misinformation about the purported, negative mental health effects of abortion, which are often used to justify why women should continue to be denied access to safe and legal abortions in Ireland.

Perhaps, instead, those concerned about women’s mental health should consider the negative impact of a lack of autonomy, being forced to travel abroad for an abortion, and the stigma attached to having an abortion?

Marguerite Regan

London E15

England

(formerly Bantry, Co Cork)

Pub 22/11/17

NO - Abortion antithesis of healthcare

I wish to reply to Orla O’Connor, of the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

Her organisation is desperate to pretend that abortion is about healthcare. She does not, of course, use the word ‘abortion’, but, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, we all know what she means.

Healthcare is about curing, healing, and protecting life. Abortion is about death. You can call an apple a banana until you are blue in the face, but an apple is an apple, and will taste like an apple.

You may have your own opinions, but you cannot have your own ‘facts’.

Bernard Naughton

Farranree

Cork.

Pub 23/11/17

YES -Repeal of Eighth is humane thing to do

I am voting yes in the upcoming referendum because I believe, as a nation of caring, compassionate people, we can and must do better for our pregnant citizens.

As Dr Peter Boylan stated: “That a woman should not die in pregnancy is the absolute lowest bar to aim for in a modern country.” We cannot continue to send vulnerable pregnant people abroad (often alone) so that we can continue to bury our heads in the sand. In the tragic cases of fatal foetal abnormalities, when the merciful decision is made, women are being forced to go through such a traumatic ordeal without family and their own doctor there to comfort and support them.

I appeal to the citizens of this country to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

It is the only humane thing to do.

Sarah Slattery

Crosshaven

Co Cork

Pub 02/05/2018

NO - Some home truths about adoption

It will be cold comfort to adopted individuals to know they’d be better off dead than adopted (Maurice Fitzgerald ‘Adoption not better than abortion’ Irish Examiner, 8/2/18).

If Mr Fitzgerald could manage to take his head out of the 1950s for a moment, he would see that adoption these days is a very different story.

Children adopted nowadays know as much about themselves and origins as it is possible, and as early, to know. It is an absolute insult to parents — myself included — of adopted children to claim they all lie to their children. Parents who lie to their children, lie to their children, whether they are adopted or not. I do not count myself among that number. If children are from another country, every effort is made to ensure they stay in contact with the culture of their country of origin.

They are most certainly not “treated as second-class citizens” by anyone except the ignorant — and who values the opinion of the ignorant?

Many of the problems described by Mr Fitzgerald can also be found among “biological children” who’ve had difficult upbringings. How very generous of Mr Fitzgerald to offer them all their deaths, instead of compassion and a helping hand, as a solution.

Adoption is not “a curse forced on unwanted children”. Adoption makes a win-win situation out of any crisis pregnancy. It provides a loving home for any child whose biological mother cannot, or does not want, to raise it. It means any mother who has a change of heart may be able to see and hold her child one day, talk to them. It means a family can welcome a child they DO want into their hearts. Far from being unwanted, every adopted child will know they were definitely wanted — as anyone who has been through the prolonged gruelling process and expense of adopting can vouch for.

Abortion, on the other hand, destroys at least one life, maybe more. It ends all possibility of a loving home, a child for those who want one, a possible second chance for any mother who changes her mind. Abortion, not adoption, makes second-class citizens out of the unborn.

Nick Folley

Carrigaline

Co Cork

Pub 05/03/18

YES - Focus on foetus ignores the woman

I find it very telling that posters for the ‘no’ campaign focus almost exclusively on the foetus. All we see of the woman is her pregnant belly or inside her uterus.

A woman is not merely a vessel. She is a person with hopes, dreams, family, and friends. Do they really love both because it seems to me they only love the unborn?

Siún Phelan

Gorey

Co Wexford

Pub 10/05/2018

NO - The Eighth has served us well

It is disappointing to hear Dr Rhona Mahony calling for repeal of the Eighth Amendment. As a doctor, she is very familiar with the humanity of the baby in the womb and the fact that his or her heart starts beating at three weeks. Some women will not even know they are pregnant at this stage. Why then should the baby be deprived of protection under our laws? The Eighth has served us well. It has ensured that babies in the womb are protected while also guaranteeing that women receive whatever treatment they need while pregnant. This would seem to me to be far better than the system which exists in other countries where babies’ lives are ended in abortion.

Louise Heavey

Renmore

Galway

Pub 15/09/2017

YES - Eighth delivered a cruel punishment

The 1983 amendment to the Constitution sought to ensure that abortion was not an option for pregnant women in Ireland. It expressly accords rights to the life of the unborn child, by requiring the State to vindicate that right to life, as far as practicable, with due regard to the equal life of the mother. This somewhat complicated formula of rights, seemingly both equal and conditional, has been interpreted by the courts in a manner which more absolutely equalises the right of both lives.

The direct harmful consequences of these laws have been evident in an avalanche of personal testimonies in the lead up to the forthcoming referendum. Appropriate medical intervention is simply not available to women, despite circumstances where the continuation of a pregnancy will have tragic or dangerous effects. Equally pregnant women who have been the victims of rape or incest or who are experiencing a crisis pregnancy are prevented by law from receiving their preferred intervention from the Irish healthcare system.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution has delivered a cruel and unyielding punishment for pregnant women who seek compassionate medical intervention. Notwithstanding the current legal framework preventing abortion, 12 Irish women a day terminate a pregnancy, and through our laws we shamefully condone their expulsion to other countries.

The referendum on May 25 provides Irish society with an opportunity to right the wrongs of our past.

Following a successful yes vote on May 25, the Government has committed to introduce a legal framework, which will create parameters and regulatory conditions relating to the termination of pregnancies.

Dr Louise Crowley School of Law UCC

Colette Kelleher

Senator Prof Louise Kenny

Faculty Health & Life Sciences University of Liverpool

Annie Roche

TFMR

Pub 02/05/2018

NO - We should ignore Trudeau

May I draw your readers’ attention to the recent visit of An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to Canada, where he met that country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau. The citizens of Ireland were given what amounted to a lecture on women’s rights in the context of abortion.

To my mind, it was no accident that the subject of abortion was introduced, given the drive to have the so-called Eighth Amendment repealed and to allow abortion-on-demand in this country.

For Trudeau to enter the fray is outrageous, considering that Canada has one of the most liberal abortion regimes in the world. Then, as a follow-up, again in Canada, Varadkar announced his intention to have a referendum as soon as possible next year to enable the citizens of Ireland to ensure that women’s ‘rights’ are advanced. The ‘rights’ are not rights when the right of the child in the womb is not taken into consideration.

Therefore, it cannot be said that the Eighth Amendment contravenes women’s rights, when the rights of the unborn are ignored.

The most vulnerable will need the continued protection of the Eighth Amendment and so any attempt at its repeal must be resisted.

Brian M. McMahon

Ennis

Co Clare

Pub 31/08/2017

YES - Where are pro-life when it comes to homeless?

Miriam Beattie (We should keep the Eighth Amendment, Irish Examiner, September 5) states: “Ireland was once known as the safest place in the world to have a baby”. She claims that because of the Eighth Amendment — which reduces the worth of a sentient woman to that of a foetus at any point in its development — “our obstetricians had become exceptionally skilled in saving the lives of both mother and unborn baby in the most complicated of situations”.

This is a claim frequently made by those who want Ireland to maintain its constitutional diminution of women’s bodily rights. It is a claim — in and of itself — that is not an outright lie.

There was indeed a time when Ireland claimed to be the safest place in the world to have a baby. A 2007 World Health Organization report on maternal mortality rates — deaths per 100,000 live births — showed that, appallingly, 900 mothers die in every 100,000 live births in sub-Saharan Africa. In Latin America, it’s 130. In East Asia, that figure is 50. In the rich countries of the developed world, nine mothers die in every 100,000 births.

In Ireland, it seems that only one mother died in every 100,000.

There was, of course, a very good reason we were allegedly nine times safer for mothers than richer countries with better health systems.

Ireland was not recording maternal deaths on Irish death certificates as being caused by childbirth.

We were, to quote the TV series The Wire, juking the stats, changing the parameters of our responses so as to alter the outcome. In other words, we were lying.

Since 2009, we have joined the UK’s Confidential Maternal Death Enquiry system and we now have accurate statistics. In Ireland, we record between nine and 10 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Those figures tally with other rich, developed countries, including countries like the UK which have liberal abortion regimes.

It is disingenuous in the extreme to claim that Ireland was once the safest place in the world to have a baby when we know that claim was founded on falsified statistics.

Here’s a statistic that is not falsified: There are 8,000 Irish people currently homeless, 3,000 of them children whose lives are being blighted by the lack of a proper home. Where are the “pro-life” when it comes to helping the actually alive?

Donal O’Keeffe

Fermoy

Co Cork

Pub 08.09.2017

NO - Too few represent society on abortion

Bernard Naughton (May 29) rightly raises questions about the recommendations of the 100 member-strong Citizens’ Assembly on abortion and the repeal of the 8th Amendment. Many wrongly assumed that the Assembly’s view represent those of the public at large.

There are no circumstances where they could be held to do that. Even if representative of society, there are too few of them to reliably represent Irish society. Most polling companies use samples of 1,000 persons which they try to make representative of the population as a whole, and write of ‘margins of error’ of around 3 to 3.5%.

This means, roughly, that if repeated samples of 1,000 persons are polled most poll results will lie within 3 to 3.5% of the results for the entire population. With a sample of 100, the margin of error becomes 9 to 11%. However, the 100 brave citizens who stuck out the weekend meetings of the Assembly, listening to sad and gruesome tales from experts and interested parties, were partly self-selecting, for only those agreeable to take on the role were included. The best that can be said of the Assembly is that they considered virtually all possibilities after having been extensively informed; their recommendations must be taken with a grain of salt, not because they are wrong, but because they are unlikely to represent public opinion.

The public are not nearly as well informed as the Assembly; unless they are ‘brought up to speed’ of all arguments, their views will differ for that reason too.

John Colgan

Leixlip

Co Kildare

Pub 31/05/2017

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