First, what’s at stake in this debate is the value of life, and the sad experience of other countries is that once laws permitting abortion are introduced, they diminish the society’s respect for the inherent value of every human life, born or unborn.
Every country has to honestly address issues related to the right to life. There is an unceasing challenge for Government and society at large to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for expectant mothers and their unborn children. But equally, we cannot shy away from the implications of what legal abortion would involve and the brutal reality of abortion, legal up to birth, in countries like Britain and elsewhere.
The law is an educator. It helps shape society’s values and social norms. In the first year after the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act in Britain, 1 in 40 pregnancies ended in abortion. Within only 5 years it was 1 in 7. In 2013, the total number of abortions in England and Wales was 185,331.
Simply because something is legal in another country does not mean that we should blindly follow suit. In Britain, abortion is legal up to birth where the child has a disability such as Down’s Syndrome. It is up to us here in Ireland to decide our own laws. We can learn from the mistakes of a pro-abortion culture like Britain.