Cathal BarryPro-Life Campaign hosts annual conference
Ireland is a “beacon to the world” for its care for mothers and babies in pregnancy and should work to restore its pro-life ethos following last year’s abortion law, a major pro-life conference has heard.
Julia Holcomb, former girlfriend of Aerosmith lead singer Steve Tyler, shared the story of her late-term abortion and how she came to regret it at the Pro Life Campaign’s National Conference 2014 which took place in the RDS, Dublin, at the weekend.
She told the conference that she never spoke publicly about her abortion story until Steve Tyler wrote about it in his autobiography when he was a judge on American Idol in the US.
Since then she has worked with a group called Silent No More, which consists of women who have suffered after abortion and want to end the spiral of silence surrounding abortion regret.
Debate
Referring to her personal story and the current debate on abortion in Ireland, Ms Holcomb said: “You do not want women and babies to experience the victimisation and abuse that abortion brings as has happened in the US.”
Also speaking at the conference, which was attended by 600 people, Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick, a disability rights campaigner, spoke about the push for euthanasia worldwide.
He described the step-by-step expansions of the categories of people who can be killed once euthanasia is introduced in a country.
He also referred to the softening of language used by proponents of euthanasia in the effort to sway public opinion.
Roger Kiska, an international human rights lawyer, told the crowd that despite the claims of pro-choice campaigners, there is no international right to abortion in law and he stated that one day abortion will be regarded as something as morally repulsive as slavery. He urged pro-life people to continue in their efforts to work towards that day.