Fact check: Will abortion be legalised up to the sixth month of pregnancy?
Save the 8th campaign has claimed abortion will be legalised up to six months
May 8, 2018
Sarah Bardon Political Reporter
Question: Will abortion be legalised up to the sixth month of pregnancy?
Who is making the claim?
Save the 8th campaign: “I had no idea they wanted to legalise abortion up to six months.” (Poster assertion)
On what are they basing their claims?
‘The woman who has had an abortion probably lives on your street and you just don’t know it’
Pro-choice group launches new campaign as referendum approaches
May 5, 2018
Sarah Burns
The State “cannot continue to turn a blind eye” to women who are having abortions, the Together for Yes campaign has said.
With less than three weeks until the referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits abortion in almost all circumstances, both the pro-choice and the anti-abortion campaigns will be travelling the country this week.
Abortion referendum: Motivated Yes versus determined No
‘When it comes down to the rub, it is much closer to 1995 in terms of urban/rural split’
May 4, 2018
Harry McGee
“Get there firstest with the mostest”, was the cardinal rule of US civil war general Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The Yes and No campaigns in the referendum on the Eight campaigns seem to have taken that approach to heart. Both are trying to hit the max on every imaginable metric – posters, volunteers, funding, social media reach, communications and messaging.
Inside two rambling Georgian buildings on either side of the Liffey are the nerve centres of Together for Yes campaign, and the opposing Save the 8th.
‘Eighth’ campaign trail not as straightforward as a Yes/No answer
On the ground, a good way of gauging strength of one side is to follow the opposition
May 3, 2018
Harry McGee
In suburban Castleknock the cherry blossoms are out, there is the smell of freshly-cut grass and people-carriers are parked in many driveways.
Middle-class areas of Dublin West are expected to be a bulwark for the Yes campaign in the referendum. This is the constituency of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. It is also one of the youngest constituencies in the country.
It is mixed, split between middle-class and working-class areas, with a high percentage of residents who were born outside Ireland. There are No voters here too but, overall, it would be a surprise if it did not go strongly Yes.
Rising number of unregulated online ads in abortion campaign
Government may need to seek change in law to govern online campaigning – McEntee
May 2, 2018
Pat Leahy
A Fine Gael Minister, a Fianna Fáil TD and an independent senator have all warned in recent days about the growing proliferation of unregulated online advertisements in the abortion referendum campaign.
Minister for European Affairs Helen McEntee said Government may need to seek a change in the law to govern online campaigning in the future, but encouraged Yes campaigners to “call out” misleading or false advertising by No campaigners.
Fact check: Does one in every five pregnancies in England end in abortion?
Save the 8th makes claims about English abortion regime on posters
May 1, 2018
Sarah Bardon
Question
Does one in every five pregnancies in the UK end in an abortion?
Who is making the claim?
The Save the 8th campaign, which opposes the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, makes the claim on one of the group’s posters and in other campaign material. It states that, in England, 1 in 5 babies is aborted. The campaign uses the word “babies” as it considers that life begins at the moment of conception.
Anti-abortion group targets hospitals with extreme imagery
Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform linked to US organisation
May 1, 2018
Peter Murtagh
An anti-abortion group that uses extreme imagery as a deliberate shock tactic has targeted Dublin’s three maternity hospitals with banner-style pictures of dismembered foetuses.
One hospital, the Rotunda, called the gardaí. A senior nurse from another, the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), remonstrated with members of the group, telling them: “Go away. You are disgusting.”
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.
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.
Battle on doorsteps reveals different truths for Yes and No campaigns
Both sides in abortion referendum believe they have the edge. How can both be right?
April 27, 2018
Harry McGee
When you ask Joe Walsh, a No campaigner, when he started canvassing for the referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, his response takes you aback. “We started three years ago,” he says, matter-of-factly, “and have not stopped since then.”
Although the media spotlight over the past five years has been mostly on the evolution of the referendum to decide whether to repeal the amendment, which bans abortion in almost all circumstances, anti-abortion campaigners have not been idle, as is immediately apparent outside Dublin. The No campaign was first to put up its posters, and it has big canvassing teams, in which young women tend to be to the fore, in most parts of the State.
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