We must commit to have better conversations about abortion

The View

Even three years on, many of us are still grieving the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. The grief is not as raw as it once was but it will probably never go away.

It is so tempting to give up and to decide that the gulf is unbridgeable. Thankfully, most pro-life activists have settled in for the long haul. The organisations with which I am most familiar are the Pro Life Campaign, the Life Institute, and of course, the Iona Institute, of which I am a patron. All these groups and others are doing important work.

There have also been a number of new initiatives since the referendum, including one called the Minimise Project, which was founded by a number of young people from both the North and south of this island. Some of them were previously involved in other pro-life organisations but most were not.

The Minimise Project aims to facilitate better conversations about abortion and to discuss the reality of abortion in Ireland, and to promote policies that could reduce the abortion rate. It recognises the valuable work done by campaigning, politically focused pro-life organisations, and welcomes the diversity of the movement but its aims are different.

Its objectives can be summed up by this statement on its website: “We want the Irish abortion rate to be as low as possible. Our ultimate goal is to build a society where pregnancy and parenting are never barriers to professional or educational achievement, financial security, or happiness, and thus a society where abortion is both redundant as a social practice and unconscionable as an act of violence against the most vulnerable of human beings.”

The majority vote for repeal revealed that Ireland did not have a truly pro-life culture for a long time. Those who succeeded in getting the Eighth Amendment into the constitution probably saved over 100,000 lives before it was repealed.

Achievement

This is an immense achievement. However, from the moment the Eighth Amendment was passed, people were working to undermine it. They did so conversation by conversation. Sure, the pro-choice lobby had the backing of many of the this country’s elites, particularly in the media. But the pro-choice lobby also slogged away, persuading people, getting people to tell their stories and never, ever resting.

Pro-life people must now do the same. One of the central aims of the Minimise Project is to foster better conversations. Finding common ground is important but so is being really immersed in the very best pro-life arguments and understanding the position of those who hold different views.

For example, in one blog post, the Project uses the analogy of climate sceptics to illustrate why pro-life arguments often fail. Climate change sceptics are not monolithic. https://theminimiseproject.ie/2019/11/24/what-questions-do-you-need-to-ask-pro-choice-people/

There are the people who do not believe climate change is happening. Then there are people who believe climate change is happening, but don’t believe that human activity or carbon emissions have anything to do with it because they believe the climate is changing naturally of its own accord.

Finally, there are people who believe climate change is happening, and who believe it is caused by human activity, but who don’t think it’s a bad thing overall, and that the good caused by climate change will outweigh the bad.

Unless you know the reasons for any individual’s climate change scepticism, you will not be able to address someone’s objections. Similarly, pro-lifers tend to believe that once you have demonstrated that a baby before birth is human, you have won the argument. But some pro-choice people accept that a baby before birth is human and even that abortion is killing.

Choice

As this particular blog points out, “they still think abortion is an acceptable choice though, because they believe the right to bodily autonomy of the woman is more important than the right to life of the baby”.

In other words, unless you know the concerns which motivate a pro-choice person, you have no hope of engaging with them. The website acts as a kind of primer as to how to address different types of pro-choice arguments while also supporting practical help for those facing challenging pregnancies.

For example, one of the policies which it supports is Aontú’s policy of having child benefit start from the 27th week of pregnancy. Another recent post looked at the need to address issues such as housing and other socio-economic issues which lead to abortion.

The Minimise Project also acts as a clearing house for the best of pro-life arguments from abroad, including from the Equal Rights Institute and Secular Pro-Life Perspectives. (Incidentally, the Minimise Project is not a religious organisation, nor are they affiliated with any religious or faith group.)

The Minimise Project is an essential resource for anyone who is committed to the long haul of changing our culture to one which is truly pro-life.