Ireland forces taxpayers to pay for all elective abortions

Last year, Ireland voted in a referendum to legalize the killing of preborn babies.  Before the fateful vote on May 25, 2018, the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution recognized the Right to Life of the preborn child.  In a vote influenced heavily by anti-Life organizations around the world, Ireland rejected this Pro-Life amendment, opening up the possibility for elective abortion for any reason up to birth.

Shortly after, the inhumane changes to Irish law went into effect with the Irish Parliament legalizing elective abortion.  Next, the anti-Life politicians who had successfully orchestrated the referendum succeeded in demanding that all elective abortions be paid by tax dollars.  In a single year, Ireland went from one of the strongest Pro-Life countries in the world to a nation that forces Pro-Life citizens to pay for the elective killing of preborn babies.

When Irish President Michael Higgins signed the referendum bill last fall, Health Minister Simon Harris announced that elective abortion would be considered part of the national health service.  He told reporters, “Yes, it is my intention that the services [abortion]will be free.”

But, of course, the services are not free.  The cost of elective abortion will be shouldered by Irish citizens, many of whom are still strongly Pro-Life and campaigned tirelessly against the unjust repeal of legal protection for the preborn.  Although anti-Life politicians often campaign on an agenda of “choice,” the pro-abortion position only allows for one choice: abortion.

As the international abortion lobby shifts from claiming abortion is a necessary evil to arguing the killing of the preborn is a positive good, they are becoming ever more militant.  Now, they are not content for the slaughter of innocent preborn babies to be the law of the land; they want you to pay for the abortions of others.  

Texas Right to Life worked for several sessions to ensure the passage of Pro-Life Health Insurance Reform.  The legislation protects Pro-Life Texans from paying for the elective abortions of others through tax dollars or private insurance premiums.  All that work could be undone if the abortion mob gains control. We’ve already seen on the national stage in the run-up to the Democratic presidential primary that even those candidates formerly “moderate” on abortion (if one can be moderately in favor of killing innocent human beings) have caved to the abortion mob and are now advocating taxpayer funding of elective abortion.

The failure of the Texas House to pass life-saving legislation that would have ended late-term abortion in our state should be a wake up call.  As we saw with Ireland, one of the strongest Pro-Life nations in the world became a country with taxpayer-funded abortion on-demand in a single year.  We cannot let this happen in Texas.

Pro-Life groups in Ireland are also now fighting to protect babies diagnosed with Down syndrome or disabilities before birth from the discriminatory late-term abortions that are still legal in Texas.

Michael O’Dowd, a Pro-Life candidate in Ireland, has spoken out against discriminatory abortions and the pressing need to protect people from disabilities from being aborted in horrific late-term abortions.  He said, On World Down Syndrome Awareness Day, I am asking the government to take steps to ensure that screening isn’t used to eliminate people with Down Syndrome, like my son Conor.”  Other European countries have reached a point where virtually every child diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome is killed in abortion.

Having once been a nation that protected every preborn child, Ireland is now fighting to incrementally protect the most vulnerable, which Texans have been doing for more than 40 years.  Although Texas can be confident in the previous decades of Pro-Life work that has advanced protections for the preborn, the elderly, and the disabled in our state, we cannot be overly confident.  Lives are at stake, and the Texas House has failed to listen to Pro-Lifers calling for further advancements.  If we are going to stop backsliding as a Pro-Life state, we need strong, meaningful Pro-Life legislation and nothing less.

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