The Rally for Life in 2017.
Photo: John McElroy 
Ireland’s abortion regime makes visible pro-life campaigning all the more vital, writes Niamh Uí Bhriain
Voter regret in regard to the abortion referendum is real and it is growing. Every month seems to bring a new and more shocking revelation about Simon Harris’s new abortion regime, and in response come increasing numbers of people who reluctantly voted Yes and are now horrified at the outcome.
This month, Peadar Tóibín TD raised shocking new details about the tragic case of a baby aborted after a misdiagnosis in the National Maternity Hospital. The parents say that an abortion was suggested by doctors who insisted the baby had a “fatal” abnormality and told the family not to wait for the results of further tests. After the abortion, the tests revealed the baby was perfectly healthy.
Deputy Tóibín revealed that the family at the centre of the case claimed that this might, in fact, be an illegal abortion because it was performed without a second doctor examining the woman in question. He also said that the parents were fearful that the matter was being swept under the carpet, and he called on Leo Varadkar not to let that happen.
On Aontú’s Facebook page, one woman posted: “If I could vote again, I’d vote No….it saddens me that I chose wrong. I would change my vote and I think I’m not alone in that statement.”
Compassion
Already, those who voted No are being shown to have been on the right side, not just of history, but of progress and mercy and compassion. We take no pleasure in that, just as we take no pleasure in being correct about the other horrifying outcomes that are hurtling towards us, but it does bolster our conviction that, now more than ever, we must stand for Life at the pro-life rally on July 6 in Dublin.
To paraphrase Yeats, all may be changed, changed utterly, but it is not a beauty that is born but a terrible cruelty.
Abortion doctors are boasting that at least 10,000 abortions will take place in 2019 – three times the number that occurred in 2018 when women travelled to Britain. So much for Leo Varadkar’s claim that abortion would be “safe, legal and rare”.
The HSE’s website is advising women who take the abortion pill to flush their baby’s body down the toilet. There has been widespread revulsion on social media to that crass, unfeeling and inhumane suggestion, though the media have been happy to ignore any such reactions.
Standing for life is how we keep the path lit as we rebuild the broken culture”
This is the brave, compassionate new Ireland then, where abortion numbers are going through the roof, a baby is aborted at 15-weeks after a ‘mistaken’ diagnosis of a disability, and our health service is abandoning women and their babies with callous and cruel indifference. It is shameful, just as the vote last May was one of the most shameful days in Ireland’s history.
But we do not bear this shame, nor do any of the 723,000 others who voted ‘No’. We sought to protect both mother and child from the barbarity of this abortion regime.
That motivation has not changed, and that determination has not faltered. We are now urgently needed more than ever, because standing for life is how we keep the path lit as we rebuild the broken culture.
Vulnerable
On Saturday, July 6, we will gather at Ireland’s largest annual event in support of the human right to life of every human person, especially the smallest and most vulnerable of all, unborn babies.
We will march for life because no vote, no act of parliament, no referendum can ever make it right to kill a child. We will call for a better answer than abortion for mothers and babies. We will hold this government and their life-ending abortion legislation to account.
The Rally for Life is also about raising up the next generation to stand for life and to change the culture, because in a society which kills its own children with legal impunity, the future belongs to those of us who love and protect all of our children. And about giving voice to pro-life medical professionals who oppose abortion and wish to be free to conscientiously object.
Most of all, we will stand for Life because the alternative is unthinkable – we will not abandon helpless preborn babies to abortion, and we will not abandon women to a mentality that tells them that they are on their own. We hope to see you there.
The Rally for Life will take place on Saturday, July 6 in Dublin, beginning in Parnell Square at 2 pm.
