An estimated crowd of 8,000 pro-life demonstrators braved bitterly cold weather to hold a candlelight vigil outside the Irish parliament on Dec. 4, calling on the government not to introduce abortion legislation. Speakers from a coalition of pro-life organizations asked Prime Minister Enda Kenny to keep a pledge made before the 2011 general election not to introduce such legislation. The protest came a week after Kenny promised “swift action” on study group recommendations that the government introduce legislation to provide for abortion in limited circumstances. In practice, abortion is illegal in Ireland; but a 1992 Supreme Court judgment—known as the X case—found that there is a constitutional right to abortion where there is a substantial risk to the life of the mother, including the risk of suicide, up to birth. The issue has been much debated in Ireland following the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year old dentist, on Oct. 28, after she was denied an abortion in an Irish hospital while suffering a miscarriage.
Irish Abortion Fight
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”
Many have questioned how so many Latinos could support a candidate like DonaldTrump, who promised restrictive immigration policies. “And the answer is that, of course, Latinos are complicated people.”
Catholic voters were a crucial part of Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president. But did misogyny and a resistance to women in power cause Catholic voters to disregard the common good?