ABORTION

COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Suite 60, Clifton House,

Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2
01 6629275

PLC Resource Leaflet A5 8pp.indd 1

www.prolifecampaign.ie
info@prolifecampaign.ie

Pro Life Campaign Ireland

@prolifecampaign

09/02/2015 12:06

Q:

Q:

Do you believe life begins at

conception?

But 4,000 women travel from

Ireland to Britain every year
for abortion. Are we not just
exporting the problem?

A:
Yes. This is not a question of belief - it is a
scientific fact. Each one of us started life as an
embryo. When the fathers sperm fuses with the
mothers egg, a human life begins. At the moment
of conception a new, unique and genetically
complete human being comes into existence.
From that moment on the new human being
develops and grows. Although very tiny, this
new human being is not just a potential life it is
already a human being with potential:
At conception, a babys sex is decided, a boy
or a girl.
18-21 days, after conception the babys heart
is beating.
At 8 weeks, everything to be found in a fullygrown person is formed.
By 12 weeks, fingerprints and fingernails
appear; the babys lips can open and close.
At 16 weeks, the baby reacts to sound, sucks,
swallows and yawns.
At 18 weeks, many mothers feel the babys
movements. Pushing with feet and head, the
baby exercises the developing muscles. The
baby now sucks his/her thumb.
At 20 weeks, the baby sleeps and wakes like a
born baby.
With advances in medical care, babies born as
early as 21 weeks can survive and thrive.

A:
The value of life is whats at stake in this debate.
The sad experience is that once laws permitting
abortion are introduced, they diminish the
societys 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.
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 societys
values and social norms. In the first year after
the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act in Britain,
1 in 40 pregnancies were aborted. Within only
five 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 Downs
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.

At 30-40 weeks, if left undisturbed, the baby

grows stronger until it is time to be born.
For years people were misled into thinking that
the unborn baby was just a clump of cells. The
amazing advances in ultrasound technology
illuminate the truth that the unborn child is a
human being. In 1967, when the abortion law
was introduced in Britain, politicians could
have pleaded ignorance to the humanity of the
unborn. In 2015, we dont have this excuse.

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Q:
But isnt abortion first and
foremost about a womans right
to choose what is best for her,
and not what society imposes?

A:
There are many situations in life where our
choices are limited, if that choice could harm the
life of another person. The rhetoric of choice in
the abortion debate not only harms a life but it
ends one. Many women whove had abortions
say they had it because they felt that they had
no choice. Every child is wanted by someone.
Steve Jobs, Andrea Bocelli, Jamie Foxx and
Nelson Mandela are just some of the people
that would not exist if their mothers had chosen
abortion over adoption.

Q:
So if a woman is raped, you still
think she shouldnt be allowed to
have an abortion?

A:
Abortion is put forward, even taken for granted,
as a solution to the most difficult situations.
But this approach also ignores the fact that it
involves the taking of an innocent unborn life and
the exposure of the women to emotional hurt
and possible psychological harm. The reality is
that our willingness to offer social support is the
single most important factor influencing a better
psychological outcome for women in crisis
pregnancy.
If what seems impossible initially has a better
long-term outcome for both the woman and her
unborn baby, then we owe it to all concerned
to have adequate supports in place to cope
with these situations. Abortion is often the easy
solution for everybody except the woman and
her unborn child.

There are very few peer reviewed studies on

pregnancy following sexual assault but a study
by Sandra Mahkorn 1 showed that there is a
better social and personal outcome for women
who chose to continue a pregnancy, despite
harrowing initial circumstances. Two recent
Finnish studies also show a better outcome for
women who continue their pregnancy compared
to women who opt for abortion. The landmark
Roe v Wade decision, which legalised abortion in
the United States, is a very clear example of how
abortion advocates uses emotive cases simply
to promote abortion. Ms Norma Mc Corvey
(Jane Roe from Roe v. Wade) admits she was
exploited by pro-abortionists at the time and now
campaigns publicly against abortion.
There are increasing numbers of women joining
the pro-life movement offering contrasting
testimonies to those of the pro-abortion lobby.
Some represent women hurt by abortion
(See www.womenhurt.ie) and others include
people like American woman Pam Stenzel who
was herself conceived as a result of rape but
cherishes the gift of life and believes she has the
same right to be alive as anybody else.

Punishing the rapist not the child

A recent report said that just 7% of rape cases
resulted in convictions. An analysis of rape
sentencing in Irish courts showed that the
average sentence handed down was just 5-7
years.
If we are to be truly concerned about protecting
women we would seek stronger sentences for
rapists and real justice for those who are victims
of rape. Rape is an unimaginable and horrendous
crime however we do not suggest ending a life to
rectify any other crime. Why do so in the case of
rape? We also have to ask ourselves: whose baby
is she carrying? It is not just the rapists baby. She
is also carrying her baby. Recently I heard a story
of a woman who was giving a pro-life talk and the
issue of rape and pregnancy came up. A young
boy put his hand up and said: My sister was born
after my mum was raped. I love my sister, she is
my best friend, and she deserves to be alive.

1 Mahkorn S: Pregnancy and Sexual Assault. The

Psychological Aspects of Abortion, Mall and Watts, 1979

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09/02/2015 12:06

Q:
What about the case where the baby
has a life-limiting condition and
may not survive outside the womb?

A:
It is unjust to end a persons life because that
person is terminally ill. Sadly to date, the media
has only presented one side of this story to the
public. When people are given an opportunity
to hear the stories of parents from groups like
One Day More, we will see a huge shift away
from seeing abortion as the answer in situations
where the baby has a terminal illness or as some
people say, a fatal foetal abnormality.

A woman recently told her story about her child

who lived for 17 minutes. In that time she named
her baby boy who was loved for every minute of
his life. She held him, kissed his face, baptised
him and later she buried him and grieved for
him. She said those 17 minutes were some of
the most precious she had ever had and she
would remember her son and could now grieve
properly.

The parents in One Day More work in solidarity

to cherish the lives of their terminally ill children
for the short time they are alive.

Where abortion is made legal in these

circumstances, it soon becomes the only option.
For example, in Britain, if parents receive a poor
pre-natal diagnosis they are handed an NHS
booklet which details what is involved in the
abortion procedure.

See www.onedaymore.ie
Some babies diagnosed prenatally with terminal
illness will live only for a few minutes, hours, or
days. Others are misdiagnosed and survive.
We have seen this happen time and again,
doctors dont always get it right. We must really
ask ourselves what is the truly compassionate
response in this situation.

Perinatal Hospice Care:

Families should first of all be informed about
perinatal hospice care and be offered contact
details of parents who have had similar
experiences so that they can lean on and
support one another.

PLC Resource Leaflet A5 8pp.indd 4

A Culture of Care
Once we concede that a child with a terminal
illness can have their life ended prematurely,
this premise will soon open the door as it has in
other countries to aborting babies with varying
degrees of disability. We have seen this with
Downs Syndrome in the UK where 92% of
babies with this particular learning disability
are aborted. The figures are similar for babies
diagnosed with Spina Bifida not because they
are the most severe types of disability, but simply
because they CAN detect them. It is scary to
think that as medicine advances and more
learning disabilities can be detected, abortion
will be encouraged more and more. We need to
lobby for perinatal hospice services in Ireland
rather than abortion in situations where the baby
has a terminal illness.

09/02/2015 12:06

Q:

Q:

But arent you just imposing

your religious beliefs on
women?

Why are you opposed to the law

introduced in 2013?

A:

A:

The Pro Life Campaign is a non-denominational

organisation which regards the right to life as the
first and most basic human right of all. Without it,
all other rights are meaningless.

Despite what the Taoiseach and others claimed,

the new law is life-ending, not life-saving. The
Government brought forward this law in the
full knowledge that abortion is not a treatment
for suicidal feelings and ignored all the peerreviewed evidence 2 showing that abortion
has adverse mental health consequences for
women. The Government did a very good job
in packaging its proposal and we accept many
people are still unaware that a law has just been
introduced that permits abortion up to birth
without a shred of medical evidence that it will
save womens lives.

You do not have to be from any particular faith

tradition to agree that human life should be
protected and that intentionally ending the life of
another human being is not right.
Some of the worlds best-known self-professed
atheists have also declared their support for the
pro-life position, eg Christopher Hitchens.

2 David M Fergusson et al.: "Abortion and mental health

disorders: evidence from a 30-year longitudinal study" The
British Journal of Psychiatry pp. 444-451 (2008)
Gissler et al.: "The European Journal of Public Health, 15(5):
459-463, Injury deaths, suicides and homicides associated
with pregnancy in Finland.

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09/02/2015 12:06

Q:

Q:

Dont opinion polls show that the

majority of Irish people support
abortion?

In rare cases doesnt a suicidal

woman need abortion to save her
life?

A:

A:

Opinion polls that make the distinction clear

between life-saving treatments in pregnancy
and induced abortion (that targets the baby)
elicit completely different responses to polls that
regularly appear in newspapers like The Irish
Times. Questions in polls that present abortion
as a treatment for suicidal intent are obviously
going to show support for abortion. But such
polls are misleading as it is a medical fact that
abortion is not a treatment for suicidal feelings.
To get an accurate gauge of public opinion, it is
essential to critically analyse the methodology
used in each poll.

PLC Resource Leaflet A5 8pp.indd 6

No, actually, this is not the case. Where a woman

has an underlying mental health illness, abortion
is not the answer and could well be counterproductive for a womans mental health. It is not
medical treatment. Where there is no underlying
mental illness, its not a medical situation at all.
Psychiatrists just happen to be the ones asked
to certify a womans eligibility for abortion. They
can ask questions to determine how suicidal
the woman is, they can suggest alternatives,
but they have no way of knowing whether
the woman will or will not commit suicide or
whether the abortion will or will not affect the
decision. Psychiatrists may decide on the basis
of educated guesswork, pro-choice ideology
or maybe just sanction the abortion as the best
bet against being sued. Whatever they do, the
Minister for Health has no way of policing it.

09/02/2015 12:06

Q:
What about the tragedy of Savita
Halappanavar?

A:
The media framed the story surrounding the
tragic death of Savita as a death caused by the
absence of legal abortion. As is clear from the
recommendations of the Coroners Inquest,
the exhaustive investigation of the sequence
of events that led up to her death established
that the actual cause of her death was infection
with a virulent anti-biotic resistant strain of E Coli
compounded by a series of systems failures that
delayed the realisation by the medical team of
the gravity of the risk to her life, and the timely
implementation of the appropriate responses
to it.
It is no exaggeration to say that RT followed the
line taken by the Irish Times, in effect channelling
the public distress and concern at the death of
Savita so that it reinforced the Governments
insistence that legislation for abortion in line with
the X case ruling was necessary, by supporting
the opinion that had such legislation been in
place she would not have died. That view was
not supported by the evidence uncovered at the
inquest.

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09/02/2015 12:06

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Published January 2015

Suite 60, Clifton House,

Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2
01 6629275

PLC Resource Leaflet A5 8pp.indd 8

www.prolifecampaign.ie
info@prolifecampaign.ie

Pro Life Campaign Ireland

@prolifecampaign

09/02/2015 12:06