People should concentrate on facts and not posters in the abortion referendum campaign, Tánaiste Simon Coveney said as he appealed for the electorate to vote Yes.
Mr Coveney warned that Ireland will be stuck with all the abortion dilemmas the State currently faces if the referendum on the Eighth Amendment is defeated.
“We will not be able to do anything if the people vote No because it will mean a freezing of time,” he said in the Dáil as he made a passionate appeal to the electorate to vote Yes.
He said “we must recognise that in any campaign as emotive and divisive as this one, people who are desperate to win an argument may present the facts in a very emotive manner”.
Mr Coveney was responding to People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith who appealed to him to join her in saying that the referendum “is not about a licence to kill as has been indicated by posters”.
She said “it is not about women being murderers. It is not about the wholesale slaughter of babies with disability.
“But it is about a quite emotive, deeply personal sensitive issue to do with women’s health. Women need to be given the right to be able to decide for their own lives.”
Mr Coveney said people “should look at the facts, rather than the posters”.
He said “I could make many emotive arguments around rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities”. Many women who had to face these challenges spoke to him because of the referendum debate.
His perspective on abortion had “changed on the basis of facts, as opposed to posters, conversations and listening to horror stories that we continue to allow as an unintended consequence of a change made to the Constitution in the 1980s”.
The Tánaiste, who previously expressed concerns about allowing terminations up to 12 weeks, said he wanted to reassure “those who recognise a change is needed but are a little concerned that it may go too far”.
He said if they voted Yes, many Oireachtas members would ensure legislation “will respect and protect women in a much more comprehensive way than we have been able to do to date”.
But he stressed that “we will also recognise the responsibility of the State towards providing protections for the unborn”.
Mr Coveney said “I passionately believe and hope the people will vote “Yes” next week because doing so would be a reflection of reality”.
He pointed out that “law that applies to abortion for Irish women is British abortion law” and they were forced to travel. “I am not willing to stand over that any more, which is the reason I am advocating a Yes vote.”
“The truth is that abortion is a reality in Ireland and women are making choices without support from the health system and doctors that is appropriate at a time of real vulnerability”. That must change, he said.
