Ireland – Five women a day seek online abortion pills, study finds

Five women a day seek online abortion pills, study finds
Ruth Coppinger TD said the medication is an ‘escape valve’ without which there would be deaths.

May 1, 2018

Campaigners have said five women a day in Ireland seek abortion pills online.

Ruth Coppinger TD said the state is “delighted” about this as without this “escape valve” women would die.

She spoke at a press conference in Dublin ahead of a briefing for senators and TDs.

Continued: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/five-women-a-day-seek-online-abortion-pills-study-finds-36863573.html


Tánaiste: Undecided voters will swing abortion referendum

Tánaiste: Undecided voters will swing abortion referendum

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Simon Coveney said undecided voters will swing next month's 8th Amendment Referendum.

He said the law the government is proposing is far from abortion on demand - but he is concerned attempts will be made to 'frighten' undecided voters in the weeks ahead.

Continued: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/tanaiste-undecided-voters-will-swing-abortion-referendum-839834.html


Irish abortion vote tests Facebook and campaign data

Irish abortion vote tests Facebook and campaign data

Facebook is rolling out transparency measures during the Irish campaign to see what happens when all users can see political advertising.

By Sarah Wheaton and Mark Scott
4/24/18

DUBLIN — Ireland’s soul-searching debate over whether to change its constitution and allow women to terminate their pregnancies coincides with a ballooning transatlantic scandal surrounding Facebook and the use of personal data in political advertising.

Irish voters go to the polls May 25 to decide whether to repeal the country’s abortion ban. With the campaign heating up, lawmakers hauled Facebook executives before parliament to grill them about how to prevent people’s personal information from being used to manipulate them online.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-abortion-referendum-may-25-facebook-advertising-save-the-8th-repeal-the-8th/


Repeal of the Eighth ‘will constitute consent’ for liberal abortion regime

Repeal of the Eighth ‘will constitute consent’ for liberal abortion regime
Save the 8th tells ‘Irish Times’ podcast most voters unaware of Yes vote implications

April 18, 2018
Sarah Bardon

Repealing the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution will constitute consent for Ireland to have a “liberal abortion regime”, the Save the 8th campaign has said.

Speaking on The Irish Times’s Inside Politics podcast, the campaign’s communications director, John McGuirk, said many people were unaware of the implications of a vote for repeal. Most voters believed they were supporting legislation allowing for abortions in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities, not terminations of “healthy babies of healthy mothers up to 12 weeks and beyond”, he claimed.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/repeal-of-the-eighth-will-constitute-consent-for-liberal-abortion-regime-1.3466187


Ireland’s fiercest culture war yet is being fought on our lampposts

Ireland's fiercest culture war yet is being fought on our lampposts

April 15, 2018
Carl Kinsella
The war over Ireland's Eighth Amendment is being fought with streetlights and zip-ties.

In late May, Ireland will go to the polls to decide whether to repeal its constitutional ban on abortion — the Eighth Amendment of Bunreacht na hÉireann. As the country hurtles towards this landmark moment, much of the attention has been focused on the respective canvassing approaches of the Yes and No campaigns.

As both sides set about ramping up their efforts to sway the public over the crucial home stretch, another ban has come into focus: Ireland's regulatory ban on paid political television and radio ads.

Continued: https://www.joe.ie/life-style/irelands-poster-war-621972


Repeal campaigner accuses anti-abortion campaigner of ‘sustained attack’

Repeal campaigner accuses anti-abortion campaigner of ‘sustained attack’
Janet O’Sullivan issues statement to the media in relation to Save the 8th spokesman

Fri, Apr 13, 2018
Colin Gleeson

A prominent campaigner for the repeal side in the upcoming abortion referendum has accused the spokesman of the Save the 8th campaign of mounting a “sustained attack” on her through social media.

In a statement on Friday, Janet O’Sullivan, who also goes by Janet Ní Shúilleabháin, said the dispute centred on remarks she made on Twitter following the death of former Fine Gael TD Peter Mathews.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/repeal-campaigner-accuses-anti-abortion-campaigner-of-sustained-attack-1.3461253


Ireland – Retired doctor says 8th Amendment did not stop him carrying out abortion

Retired doctor says 8th Amendment did not stop him carrying out abortion
Former obstetrician says primary responsibility is to mother ‘even if life of baby at risk’

Tue, Apr 10, 2018
Marie O'Halloran

A former chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said nothing in the law had prevented him from carrying out an abortion where necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

Dr Eamon McGuinness said a doctor’s primary duty lies in saving the mother and “giving her all the help she needs, even if that means that the life of the baby is at risk.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/retired-doctor-says-8th-amendment-did-not-stop-him-carrying-out-abortion-1.3457341


Ireland – Abortion referendum: money pouring in from small donors, both sides claim

Abortion referendum: money pouring in from small donors, both sides claim
Together for Yes raises €200,000 in a day; Save the 8th generates €100,000 at rally

Tue, Apr 10, 2018
Marie O'Halloran

Fundraising appeals by abortion-referendum campaigns have raised significant amounts from small donors, both sides have claimed.

Together for Yes, which wants to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution on May 25th and allow abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy, said it raised more than €200,000 in 11 hours during an online crowdfunding appeal for its national poster campaign on Tuesday.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/abortion-referendum-money-pouring-in-from-small-donors-both-sides-claim-1.3457117


Ireland – Alarm at apparent lack of urgency in repeal campaign

Alarm at apparent lack of urgency in repeal campaign
Well-organised anti-abortion campaign is weeks ahead in its postering and canvassing

Tue, Apr 10, 2018
Pat Leahy

The leaders of the Together for Yes campaign gathered in Dublin on Monday to publicise the launch of their postering campaign in advance of the referendum on May 25th.

Cameras clicked as T-shirted activists ascended poles. But many of the poles the campaigners and workers decorated with their message already had competing messages – the anti-repeal campaigners had beaten them to it.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/alarm-at-apparent-lack-of-urgency-in-repeal-campaign-1.3456037


Ireland – Abortion fake-news firestorm heading our way

Fintan O’Toole: Abortion fake-news firestorm heading our way
Why has Save the 8th hired consultant at heart of Trump-Mercer-Brexit data nexus?

March 27, 2018
Fintan O'Toole

If you like my stuff you’re an ignoramus. Many people would agree with this as a general proposition, but I mean it in a more specific sense. If you’ve ever liked or shared one of my columns online, data-analysis firms probably identify you as a hopeless lefty liberal. And you will therefore be ignorant of the big social-media campaign against the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which bans abortion in almost all circumstances. That campaign will be modelled on those that helped both Donald Trump and Brexit to victory. It will use microtargeting to direct specific messages to those who can be most easily swayed by them. You won’t see them – and as things stand Irish regulations will do nothing to control them.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-abortion-fake-news-firestorm-heading-our-way-1.3440927