Irish law has a required three-day wait time before an initial abortion consultation and the abortion procedure.

For pro-life advocates, this provision is significant.

About 1,500 Irish women in 2020 decided not to go through with an abortion after seeking an initial consultation.

"My primary concern here is to ensure that women and babies are protected and supported," said Carol Nolan, an independent Deputy to the Dáil from Laois-Offaly.

She accused both the current Minister for Health and his predecessor, of having "a kind of cold-shoulder attitude toward those who seek to place the emphasis on the need to reduce abortions rather than promote them."

"That is not acceptable, and I will continue to fight against it. We can and must do better for women and their babies," she said.

The law in the Republic of Ireland allows abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks into pregnancy. It also allows abortion if there is a risk to the life or health of a mother, or if there is any condition likely to lead to the death of the unborn child.

"The 2020 figures show that 1,480 women decided against having an abortion during this crucial [three day wait period] window," says Eilis Mulroy of the Ireland-based group the Pro-Life Campaign.

"Whilst the three-day waiting period may not have been the only or most important factor in all these cases, it was undoubtedly a significant and life-saving measure in many cases.

"Many lives have been saved by the three-day waiting period, which demonstrates its inherent value."

Mulroy is encouraging the public and lawmakers to reflect on these numbers ahead of the Minister for Health's three-year review of abortion legislation.

Another Irish woman supporting the three-day wait period is Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute.

"Clearly, without the reflection period the already shockingly high abortion rate would be even higher," she said.

"No reasonable person wants that - or wants more abortions to take place. Attempts by abortion advocates to scrap the three-day waiting period should be strongly resisted."

Right to Life UK is hopeful that a three-day waiting period can be legally required in Britain. About 79 percent of them support a waiting period, according to a May 2017 ComRes survey.

Right to Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson says: "Even supporters of abortion who typically frame the debate around ‘choice', should favor the introduction of waiting periods. They clearly give women a chance to consider their options, and perhaps find the help they need to go through with their pregnancy."

Besides Ireland, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain all require a waiting period of at least three days between an initial consultation for an abortion procedure and an abortion itself.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: ArtStation

To maintain state funding, the marriage guidance group must agree to counsel same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage was legalised in Ireland in 2015. Read more

The public will be asked to vote on the bill at the end of May.

Voters will be asked if they want to remove the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn.

If passed, the Eighth Amendment would be altered to enable politicians to set the country's abortion laws in the future.

The bill is about "giving the people of Ireland a say in how Ireland treats women," Ireland's Minister for Health, Simon Harris says.

He says even if the Eighth Amendment remained it would not stop abortion.

The Irish government says that if the Yes vote wins it will push legislation through parliament later this year to allow abortions to be carried out up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.

Ireland's Catholic bishops say repealing the Eighth Amendment "would leave unborn children at the mercy of whatever permissive abortion laws might be introduced in Ireland in the future."

They stressed "human life begins at conception" and the right to life "is not given to us by the Constitution of Ireland or by any law. We have it ‘as of right'."

The bishops have called on Catholics to "work actively" to resist change.

They warned that changing the Irish Constitution would serve no purpose other than to withdraw the right to life from some categories of unborn children.

"To do so would radically change the principle, for all unborn children and indeed for all of us, that the right to life is a fundamental human right," they say.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Guardian
• The Tablet
• Image: Daily Mail

The first of July will mark another centennial, that of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in human history, in which over 3,500 Irish soldiers were killed.

For 100 years, the Rising has occupied center stage in the historical memory making of republican Ireland and the global Irish diaspora. But the role of Irish soldiers in World War I had been all but forgotten - until now.

As a historian of Ireland and the British Empire, I seek to understand not only these events themselves, but also the discrepancies in the ways they have been studied and remembered.

Why has it taken so long to see their interconnections?

The Rising that shook the empire

On April 24, 1916, a band of radical republicans forcibly seized and held key positions in Dublin.

Frustrated by the failure of Britain to implement Home Rule - a form of devolved self-government, not unlike what Scottish "Yes" voters sought in 2014 - as well as by the Irish majority's seeming contentment to remain within the United Kingdom, the rebels sought to awaken the Irish nation and wrest the country from Britain's imperial grasp.

It was an opportune moment, the rebels reasoned. Britain was otherwise engaged - in fighting World War I, or what would become known as the "Great War" because it was quickly becoming the biggest and most horrendous war the world had ever seen.

The rebellion, at least in the immediate term, was a failure.

Inadequately armed with outdated weapons and vastly outnumbered, the rebels were no match for the British Goliath. They held out against the British counterassault for only six days. The leaders were quickly executed. Approximately, 1,800 Irish men and women were detained in prison camps in Britain. The Irish public failed to lend the rebels their support. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Associate Professor, History, University of Florida, in The Conversation.
• Image: The Belfast Telegraph