Legal Abortion Is Now a Reality in Ireland

A group of seven pro-life Catholics gathered outside the hospital on the morning of January 7, 2019, “merely to show support for that child who is losing his or her life today,” declared Charles Byrne, one of the seven.

The archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, speaking to the Irish State Boradcaster on January 5, advised Catholics not to protest right outside hospitals, saying that “everybody is going there, and people go there for all sorts of reasons,” not only for abortions.

The priests of Drogheda called on Sunday, the feast of the Epiphany, for prayers that the young woman whose abortion was scheduled for the next day would have a “change of heart”.

The Catholic Church in Ireland began the new year by restating her opposition to abortion, which was voted in by a referendum in May 2018: in his New Year’s greetings, Archbishop Eamon Martin, archbishop of Armagh and president of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, recalled that the law on abortion “has no moral force” and cannot oblige in conscience, and that Catholics have a duty to oppose it.

Bishop Kevin Doran, bishop of Elphin, declared in his New Year’s greetings to the faithful of his diocese that Catholic politicians who pleaded for abortion had “chosen a position which is clearly out of communion with the Church.”

Church law prescribes an immediate excommunication on all those who directly participate in the accomplishment of an abortion.