‘We lost, but we weren’t wrong’ hears anti-abortion meeting

Only 11 of the country’s 19 maternity hospitals provided surgical terminations.

A local grassroots movement of people opposing the repeal of the Eighth Amendment are set to offer support to doctors and staff at Cavan General who, like them, wish to resist the introduction of surgical terminations at the hospital.

As of May, only 11 of the country’s 19 maternity hospitals provided surgical terminations.

Cavan is among those not yet providing abortion services. The concern comes amid plans to ensure all 19 provide such services by early 2024.

It's one of the focuses of a planned 2023 Rally for Life event set to take place in Dublin this Saturday, July 1.

They also want to head off the introduction of an abortion reform Bill, set to abolish the current mandatory three-day waiting period for women, which has now passed the second stage in the Dáil.

Barrister Marie O’Shea, who conducted a review of the State’s abortion law, told an Oireachtas committee recently that failing to implement the change could result in legal challenges. In her report, Ms O’Shea called for the decriminalisation of doctors, the removal of the mandatory three-day waiting period to access medication, new guidelines on conscientious objection, and for the rules on accessing abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality to be reassessed.

On Wednesday evening last week, June 21, at Cavan’s Farnham Arms Hotel, in a room adjacent to where in 2018 pro-choice campaigners launched their own campaign, several dozen gathered to attend an event organised by Dublin-based campaign organisation, Family and Life.

Facilitated by local man Liam de Paor, guest speaker was Michael Dwyer, Director of the Edmund Burke Institute, who helped train people to debate issues around the repeal campaign and to defend the right to life of the unborn child.

The meeting meanwhile was chaired by Paddy Manning from Kilkenny, who stood as an Independent candidate in the 2016 general election on a pro-life and pro-family platform.

Addressing the meeting, Mr Manning said it was a “great sign of hope” to see so many in attendance given the inclement conditions lashing down outside.

“It’s a terrible night, but with God on our side how can we fail,” offered Mr de Paor in response.

Taking up the discussion, Mr Dwyer said “we are where we are” in respect of the 2018 referendum result, which in Cavan-Monaghan saw an overwhelming majority, one of the highest in the country (81.4% of 33,165 who voted) opt in favour of repeal.

But he indicated that the wind has begun to change direction, and that a “lot of people don’t agree” with the changes as recommended following the independent review of abortion services across Ireland.

He suggested that some had voted a certain way “because they had a particular understanding of what would be”.

“They thought what we were going to get was restrictive. That’s not what we got,” said Mr Dwyer. “Safe, legal and rare. That’s what they told us. Implicit in that was that abortion was a bad thing. Now it’s just healthcare.”

Since repeal, 17,820 terminations were carried out in Ireland between 2019 and 2021. But the independent review found an uneven geographic spread of health facilities providing access to termination services.

A total of 77 terminations occurred where the address of the woman was given as Cavan in 2019; 107 in 2020; and 70 in 2021. Outside of a hospital setting there are three locations in Cavan where termination services are currently provided.

In neighbouring Monaghan, where there are two, the figures were 36 terminations in 2019; 54 in 2020; and 46 in 2021.

The report states a recruitment process to appoint medical practitioners to carry out terminations at Cavan General closed in December 2022, and interviews were scheduled for January 2023. It is not known whether the positions have been filled.

Mr Manning stated: “This was all about giving people choice, and giving people freedoms, which I find strange, because there is one person in all this with no choice: the unborn child.”

He said there was push to change the language around so-called “conscience rights to conscience obstacles”, and added that to push back against such agendas will mean having to “reach out to people we never previously agreed with.”

He asked if such changes do materialise meaning “abortion is a right, what right then have you to restrict that?”

Along with supporting hospital staff in their own individual objection, Mr Dwyer encouraged those present, which included a large attendance from ‘Choose Life’, a movement centred in the parish of Mullahoran, to also lobby their TDs, senators and local councillors.

They noted too the number of women who made appointments for a termination, and chose not to go through with their initial decision - close to 4,000.

“We have to have conversations with people we know, and not arguments,” urged Mr Dwyer, who said people would be “amazed” about how little information others have about abortion issues. “An argument is like beating someone over the head with a hurl. While you might win the argument you might lose the person. Speak your truth. Inform yourself.”

He added: “You don’t have to be a Christian to believe killing the unborn is wrong. You don't have to believe in God to believe killing the unborn is wrong.”

As a result, he stated it was important that the “rights” of people working in Irish hospitals who conscientiously object to terminations should be protected.

He went on to state that it feels that politicians react only to “which way the wind is blowing” and that many were “not looking forward to the next election”.

“So we have to start a bit of a breeze,” said Mr Dwyer. “We lost, but we weren't wrong, and that's why we’re here today.”