Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Abortion referendum campaign is relatively free from religion

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Anti-abortion protesters march through Dublin to campaign for the retention of the Eighth Amendment
Anti-abortion protesters march through Dublin to campaign for the retention of the Eighth Amendment Anti-abortion protesters march through Dublin to campaign for the retention of the Eighth Amendment

Next month's abortion referendum in the south is the latest (and maybe the last) episode in Ireland's inherent tendency to fall out with itself every few years. It does so by regularly voting on core principles of Catholic doctrine, including divorce, abortion and same sex marriage.

Apart from being an exercise in democracy, referendums offer a wonderful window on the evolving soul of modern Ireland. They tend to fall into two categories: those dealing with governance and, like next month's, those in which conscience meets politics.

There is nothing like a good referendum to split the country and this one is no exception. But whereas previous abortion referendums have segregated the religious from the secular (and this will be the fifth abortion-related referendum in the past 35 years) the current campaign is largely religion-free.

Despite the sincerely held views by both sides, this referendum is essentially political, both in content and timing. The soul of Ireland has moved from Church to state. How it got there is the story of a race between a religious hare and a secular tortoise.

Abortion has been banned in Ireland since 1861. However, with increasingly liberal legislation in the US and the EU, the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign (PLAC) and the Catholic Church pushed for Ireland's ban on abortion to be written into the constitution in 1981.

At that time there were three general elections in eighteen months, so both major parties ultimately supported the demand for constitutional change (subsequently known as the Eighth Amendment) even though the Attorney General advised that its wording would lead to later complications. The religious hare was so far ahead, it won that referendum easily.

The inevitable complication arose in 1992 when a 14 year-old girl became pregnant through rape and her parents wanted her to have an abortion in England. The courts ruled that she should be allowed to travel, which prompted the government to propose new constitutional amendments.

The Thirteenth Amendment specified that the prohibition of abortion would not limit freedom to travel out of the state (presumably for abortion) and the Fourteenth said that there should be a right to distribute information about abortion services abroad. Both were passed.

In what was essentially a political compromise, Irish women could have abortions, but not in Ireland. Whatever the result of next month's referendum, both amendments will continue in operation. Irish morality remains a by-product of English geography.

In 2002, there was another referendum to tighten the constitutional ban on abortion by removing the threat of maternal suicide as grounds for legal termination. It marginally failed, because by then the hare was digging a huge hole for itself on the issue of child sexual abuse.

As the Church self-destructed, the secular tortoise made progress in the new millennium. In 2016, a special Citizens' Assembly was convened to consider a number of political issues and it voted to delete the Eighth Amendment.

A look through the window on this referendum shows that the agenda for debating abortion has changed. The language and tone of both sides is more humanist than religious.

Last week three bishops made the Church's first significant contribution to the debate.

The Bishops of Raphoe and Cork and Ross asked for prayers for a 'No' vote and the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin explained why he will be voting 'No' and asked his flock to join him.

There was no attempt at instruction, command or the threat of hell's eternal flames - just a mannerly, well presented and occasionally humble case against abortion. None of the three mentioned God. Like the gun, the crozier has been removed from Irish politics.

Equally interesting is Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin's decision to support deleting the Eighth Amendment, which represents a huge departure from the formerly close ties between his party and the Church. Whether you agree or disagree with him, his decision was politically courageous and indicative of a new era in Irish thinking.

Both his party and Fine Gael will allow a free vote on the issue, on the basis of freedom of individual conscience. Catholic Ireland has just got a lot more Presbyterian - a sort of delayed Reformation, with the religion taken out. Sinn Féin TDs, however, must follow the party line. (Think of it as a secular crozier.)

It is likely that the referendum proposal will be carried, which means that abortion will transfer to the Dáil for legislation. The debate on new abortion laws will have a major influence on the politics, policies and result of the next general election.

Whatever the referendum outcome, abortion in Ireland is about to become even more political.