Seanad rejects amendment to protect silent prayer outside of abortion clinics

An amendment that sought to protect silent prayer outside abortion clinics, proposed by Senators Sharon Keogan and Rónán Mullen, resulted in multiple senators insisting that “prayer is a personal thing” and that praying outside, even if the nature of the prayer is silent, “can easily be identified as protest”. The proposal was eventually defeated.

Outlining her reasons for tabling the amendment, independent Senator Sharon Keogan said that the current Bill “makes it quite possible that people would be arrested for silently praying if it happened to be within one of these sprawling 100m zones” and that it was “Orwellian”.

Senator Rónán Mullen, supporting the amendment, said that “people who present themselves to pray silently in the vicinity of an abortion facility are not praying against anybody. They are seeking to invoke the higher good into what they regard as a bad situation, for the benefit of everybody involved”.

Responding to the proposed amendment, Fianna Fail Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee described herself as “a Catholic”  and “was raised and taught to believe that God hears our prayers no matter where we are”, therefore negating the need to pray at a specific location as “prayer is a personal thing”.

Supporting Ms Clifford-Lee, Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway said that even if the prayer is silent “it can easily be identified as protest”. The amendment was comfortably rejected when put to a vote.