Courtney McGrailStaff reporter
The Pro-Life Campaign has insisted that attempts to remove constitutional protections for unborn children is a media-driven crusade.
The group was responding to a Behaviours and Attitudes survey on abortion, published in the Irish Examiner, claiming that 64% of farmers polled favour dismantling the 8th Amendment to allow for abortion on wider grounds.
Dr Ruth Cullen said: “If there was even the appearance of balance in media coverage of the current abortion debate, then I would be surprised at poll findings like these. But given how astonishingly one-sided the debate is at present, the results are not in the least bit surprising”.
She said that it is “an indisputable fact that the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment is not grassroots driven but is almost exclusively a media driven campaign.
“Stories of women who regret their abortions are ignored or ridiculed. The horror of what legalised abortion has led to in other countries is conveniently side-stepped,” she said.
Dr Cullen pointed to the fact that “in the space of a fortnight 33 articles appeared in national newspapers pushing for more abortion with only one from a pro-life perspective shows that the present debate is not serious but is a pretend one”.
Meanwhile, the keynote speaker at this year’s PLC national conference will be leading pro-life US congressman, Chris Smith. The conference will take place in Dublin’s RDS on October 10.
Rural Mass attendance high
Just under two-thirds of people in rural Ireland are weekly Massgoers, according to a new poll. The Examiner poll reveals that 63% of those polled describe themselves as weekly Massgoers, while 23% said they did not attend Mass regularly.
Women in farming households are also more likely to be regular Mass-goers than men – 69% of women respondents said they go every week compared with 62% of men questioned.
78% of those aged 65 and over attend Mass weekly, 74% for those aged 55 to 64 years, while 67% of those aged 45 to 54 attend weekly.
In the 35 to 44 age group, 55% attend Mass every week, and as for those aged 34 and under, 44% agreed that they go to Mass every week.