A pyrric victory:
Kirby, Peadar
Report from Ireland A PYRRHIC VICTORY DISARRAY OVER ABORTION ON SEPT. 7, the Irish electorate voted to include in the constitution a clause recognizing the equal right to life of the unborn child...
...PEADAR KIRBY (Peadar Kirby, a previous contributor, is an Irish journalist who lives in Dublin...
...Moreover, a significant lobby pushing for liberalization of Irish life has mobilized on this issue as never happened before...
...While many people remained confused, caught between the claims and counterclaims of both sides, leading figures waded into the debate often with more passion than reason...
...Not only did Protestant churches see as a distinctively Catholic view the recognition of the right to life of the unborn as being equal to that of the mother, but they all rejected the stated reason for an amendment, which was to make it more difficult for either the legislature or the judiciary to change the abortion laws.To them it smacked of a moral authoritarianism which has bedeviled life in the Republic...
...In the context of attempts to interest Northern Ireland Protestants in eventual reunification with the Republic, undoubtedly the most significant division to emerge from early on in the campaign was a confessional one...
...On both the medical and legal levels the issues raised were extremely serious...
...An opinion poll published on the eve of the vote which accurately predicted a two-to-one majority in favor of the amendment also reported a two-to-one majority in favor of divorce, at present constitutionally prohibited...
...Doctors and lawyers, preferring to make up their own minds rather than be overly influenced by the bishops, bitterly confronted each other in public for the first time ever...
...Oliver J. Flanagan, a conservative member of parliament for the governing Fine Gael party and member of a secretive, elitist Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbanus, called on the government to declare the day a public holiday as "the liberation day of the unborn...
...Any comfort taken by conservatives that they have stopped the tide of liberalization is bound to be short lived...
...Statements such as that of the same Oliver J. Flanagan that victory for the amendment would put an end to" liberal intellectuals" once and for all, and tactics of PLAC such as their allegation that they possessed proof the government was considering proposals to allow the abortion of handicapped fetuses, frightened many into active opposition...
...Robert Dornan of California...
...We have not been listened to," said a leading Church of Ireland (Anglican) theologian as the results came in...
...They have already said that they see this campaign as only a beginning...
...The Labor party, though campaigning against, also had many prominent members opposing the party line...
...Throughout the country ordinary doctors and lawyers came out on either side, forming groups to lobby for or against...
...As late as last November's general election he unconditionally accepted the proposal, even promising a referendum by March 31 if elected...
...Christopher Smith, as well as a former Congressman, Mr...
...Ian Paisley, for once echoed the widespread fears of Protestants throughout the island when he said that it guaranteed the strengthening of the sectarian nature of Irish society...
...Paradoxically, while attitudes on abortion may have changed little, what is certain is that attitudes on subjects like contraception and divorce have liberalized to a degree unimaginable even five years ago...
...For the first time ever people walked out of Sunday Mass in Catholic churches throughout the country in protest both at episcopal pastoral letters urging a "yes" vote and at preaching, often exaggerated and simplistic, seeing the issue as a new " battle of Lepanto," as one preacher put it...
...Congressmen, Mr...
...Furthermore the pro-amendment lobby were helped financially by such groups as Father Paul Marx's Human Life International and American Life Lobby, both based in Washington, D.C...
...It was this perception which mobilized the support of many leading figures in Irish life for the anti-amendment campaign...
...Thus they repeatedly charged that the amendment was sectarian and would further confirm the widespread Protestant view in Northern Ireland that the Republic is a sectarian Catholic state...
...Such a charge was simply dismissed as groundless by the pro-amendment lobby and Catholic church spokesmen but for representatives of the minority churches it remained real...
...But the bitter divisions went far deeper than just the professions most immediately concerned...
...While silent during the most bitter period of the campaign he did issue a statement on the eve of the vote in which he said that his "duty as a Christian, concerned above all with the protection of human life, from the start, and concerned with peace and reconciliation on this island, is to vote against this wording...
...This whole sorry episode in our national life has served to bring out of the woodwork some of the latent forces operative in Irish society, and many have been shocked by seeing them in the open...
...The deputy prime minister and leader of the Labor party, Mr...
...To help in their campaign PLAC brought over two U.S...
...While parliamentary members of the former agreed that the party would urge a "no" vote but not campaign, a handful of prominent members actively campaigned on opposing sides...
...From his pained soul-searching at the time he concluded that the amendment could lead to the death of women" whose lives are now saved in all hospitals in accordance with universal medical practice...
...However, in the early months of this year he began to see the whole proposal as being in contradiction to the much publicized "constitutional crusade" he launched at the end of 1981 to delete sectarian Catholic elements from the state's constitution as a way of wooing Northern Protestants...
...So deep did the passions go that they even divided the two governing political parties, Fine Gael and the Labor party...
...Controversy surrounds the role of the present Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and Fine Gael leader, Dr...
...Only Fianna Fail, the country's largest party though now in opposition, managed to maintain a strict discipline, urging a "yes" vote but with no prominent members taking any part in the campaign...
...Muggeridge read the wording of the proposed amendment and concluded it could lead to abortion being legalized rather than prevent it...
...Ultimately what makes this referendum campaign so significant is seen in the fact that this was the first time an Irish Prime Minister openly disagreed with the firm recommendation of the Catholic hierarchy on an issue touching on sexual morality...
...Abortion itself never really became an issue since both sides constantly reiterated their total opposition to it...
...In fact it quickly turned into a national debate about the liberalization of society, focusing as never before on the single most emotive issue in Irish life: are we to become a liberal pluralist society or to remain dominated by a narrow Catholic ethos...
...Many of the country's leading musicians played free of charge at concerts to publicize the anti-amendment position while leading artists donated paintings to raise funds for the campaign...
...In no way, they stressed, could it be guaranteed that the current situation would not be changed by the amendment, as PLAC continuously claimed...
...Senior doctors fought with each other as to whether this amendment would have the effect of preventing operations currently carried out to save the life of a pregnant woman which might lead to the death of the fetus...
...The proposal was first introduced by a lobby of senior doctors in April 1981 and quickly accepted by the leaders of the two main political parties...
...Since then it has generated deep bitterness and divisions throughout Irish life...
...The vote nation-wide Percent of Percent of the Returns those voting electorate Yes: 841,233 66.45% 35.79% No : 416,136 32.87% 17.6% The vote in Dublin Percent of Returns those voting Yes: 191,883 51.36% No : 179,665 48.09% Voter turnout: 53.67 percent of the electorate...
...Garret FitzGerald, for his about-turn on the issue...
...However, plans by PLAC to host a speaking tour of the country by the well-known British broadcaster, Malcolm Muggeridge, who recently became a Catholic, backfired when Mr...
...For the first time on any issue since the foundation of the state all the Protestant churches actively opposed the amendment while the Catholic church just as actively supported it, even to the extent that many pulpits were used to urge a "yes" vote...
...For the first time in decades it appeared that an issue had arisen which touched deep nerve ends in the Irish consciousness...
...Commenting on the final vote, the extremist Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, the Rev...
...While a two-to-one majority carried this amendment, the turnout was only just over fifty percent, extremely low by Irish standards more used to seventy-plus percent of the electorate voting...
...True, Mr...
...But in the most decisive way that has yet happened in the Republic this campaign also showed just how widely this conservative Catholic ethos is being rejected...
...Henry Hyde and Mr...
...This gave the anti-amendment campaign its most successful slogan: "This amendment could kill women...
...Dick Spring, put his finger on widely felt fears about the proposal when he asked in a public statement: "Is it possible that this campaign represents no more than a backlash against the slow liberalizing of our society...
...Trade unionists, teachers, publishers, musicians, even gays, all set up groups against the amendment...
...It was almost as if the party did not exist as Irish society tore itself apart...
...7, the Irish electorate voted to include in the constitution a clause recognizing the equal right to life of the unborn child and its mother...
...On the surface the campaign was about ways to prevent the liberalization of abortion laws in the Republic...
...As the campaign proceeded, there was a growing public perception of the proponents and more active supporters of the amendment proposal as representing a conservative and triumphalistic Catholicism which at times resorted to crude intimidatory tactics...
...The new clause provides a way of giving constitutional backing to the already existing legal ban on abortion...
...The country's main farming organization, the Irish Farmers Association, suspended its president and eleven executive officers for two months after they had come out publicly against the amendment...
...Many eminent lawyers, including the attorney general and the govWording of the clause now included in the Irish constitution: "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right of life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right...
...ernment's Director of Public Prosecutions, expressed fears that the wording might be interpreted by the Supreme Court either to liberalize the present abortion law or, on the other hand, to prohibit operations currently carried out...
...This was despite constant attempts by the pro-amendment campaign (the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign, PLAC, as they called themselves) and a number of Catholic bishops to insist that the campaign against the amendment was being manipulated by pro-abortion groups...
...Nonetheless, most politicians only heaved a sigh of relief that the campaign was over...
...The vote also showed a significantly higher "no" vote in urban areas and among the young...
...But perhaps most importantly the whole debate has forced ordinary people to face an extremely complex moral issue rather than resort to church authority to make their moral decisions for them...
...Charges that the anti-amendment campaign was receiving substantial funds from the International Planned Parenthood Federation in New York were denied by that organization...
...Although the measure passed by a two-to-one majority, the victory was nonetheless greeted with little rejoicing...
...FitzGerald may well seek now to reestablish his liberal credentials by moving on these issues...
...The historians may well judge it, to use the words of a lecturer in philosophy and a committed Catholic, "as whistling up a last final salute to traditional Catholicism...
Vol. 110 • October 1983 • No. 17
