After two weeks, my mom returned to the states and I accompanied my friend to Medjugorje with a group of about a dozen Irish pilgrims. We spent the week encouraging them to fight abortion. “You’re about where we were fifteen years before abortion’s legalization,” we warned. “You need to fight now!” Our admonitions fell on deaf ears. They were incredulous. Never! Never would Ireland accept abortion. And so, my friend and I returned home and just two years later Ireland’s Supreme Court allowed a 14-year-old raped by the father of a friend, to travel to England to kill her baby. (At that time Irish law forbade going out of the country to procure an abortion.) And now, last July, Ireland passed the ironically named Protection of Life During Preganancy bill which allows abortion if a mother’s life is in danger or if she is contemplating suicide (An obstetrician and two psychiatrist’s must certify). Remember the suicide loophole in our own abortion history? Prior to Roe, women often went to NY to kill their babies and over 40% of abortions were done for “psychiatric” reasons. Ireland’s pro-aborts followed the same successful strategy used elsewhere to gain abortion-on-demand: start with the hard cases (rape, incest, life of the mother, and suicide), add emotional health, and ultimately legalize abortion-on-demand for the entire pregnancy. Ireland is off to a running start with no time limit in the bill. If an ObGyn and two psychiatrists say a woman is suicidal she can get her abortion up to birth presumably. During a TV debate, psychiatrist Dr. Jacqueline Montwill asked, “How is a psychiatrist going to say that a woman is not eligible for an abortion under this legislation? No psychiatrist can tell you which patient is going to commit suicide. Psychiatrists are not going to be able to not certify this woman as being suicidal; she will therefore get her abortion.” And only one doctor needs to say the woman’s life is in danger. I suspect there will be an astronomical rise in suicidal Irish Mollies and mothers in danger of death from their pregnancies. But in any case, the writing’s on the wall: Ireland WILL have abortion on demand. And it likely won’t be long since the vote on the current bill wasn’t even close – 127 to 31. Abortion advocates are already working to expand the killing for rape, incest, and fetal abnormality. Surprise!

As in other countries, the new law is based on deceit and betrayal. Before the 2011 elections the Fine Gael (FG) party promised to uphold the right to life affirming in a written statement they were “opposed to the legalisation of abortion.” Further they said “[FG’s] representatives will bring to the proposed all-party committee a clear commitment that women in pregnancy will receive whatever treatments are necessary to safeguard their lives, and that the duty of care to preserve the life of the baby will also be upheld,” Those promises went out the window when FG, the majority party, entered a coalition with the Labour Party agreeing to support an abortion bill. Party head Enda Kenny threatened to expel any FG members voting against the bill. Seven chose conscience over career and none may stand for reelection under FG’s banner.

Oh…and one additional atrocity in the bill: there is no opt out for Catholic hospitals. While conscience rights are granted to individuals, the ministry of health made it clear that Catholic institutions must offer abortions. And the board of directors of Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae hospital already voted to march to the devil’s tune. Fr Kevin Doran, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s rep on the Board, resigned after the hospital released a statement saying, “The Hospital’s priority is to be at the frontier of compassion, concern, and clinical care for all our patients. Having regard to that duty, the Hospital will comply with the law as provided for in the act.” All patients?

And what is the response to this from the Irish Catholic Church? Not much! One bishop, Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, said legislators voting for the bill excommunicated themselves. Quoted in the Sunday Times, he said, “Your communion is ruptured if you support abortion…. Any legislator who clearly and publicly states this [support for abortion] should not approach looking for communion.” As for the others, like many bishops in the U.S. who refuse to enforce Canon 915 which mandates discipline for grave and manifest public sin, they make tepid statements about “not politicizing the Eucharist.” I’m not happy that my prediction for Ireland has come to pass, but I’ll offer another one. Ireland will have abortion on demand for any reason within a few years and the gay agenda will make inroads, the same inroads that followed U.S. acceptance of child killing. The devil is having his day! As an American of Irish German extraction, I’m praying that the strong pro-life movement in the Emerald Isle will be infused with zeal to overturn these evils. Will you join me in praying to Our Lady of Knock for “poor auld Ireland, a most distressful country?”

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