What about a different referendum?

The No side have implied there could be an alternative wording allowing abortion only in restricted circumstances. This is a note I’ve shared with a groups I’m working with.

Q: Why can’t we have an alternative wording that allowed abortion only in specific restricted circumstances?

A: Both the Citizens’ Assembly and the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment concluded that the only way to respond to the range of cases prohibited of affected by Article 40.3.3º was to remove the current provisions and to allow the Oireachtas to legislate generally. They concluded that the range of difficult circumstances are not matters that should be specified in the Constitution.

The Pro-Life Campaign have had many opportunities to present alternative wordings. Their record so far has been the opposite. In 1992, they opposed an amendment that would allow terminations where there was a risk to the life; in 2002, they supported an amendment that would refuse an terminations in cases where there was a risk to life because of a risk of suicide; in 2013, they opposed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill because it allowed terminations where there was a risk of life as a result of suicide.

When the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2018 was debated in the Dáil and Seanad, no one in either house of all those who were opposed to it proposed any alternative wording. No TD or senator proposed any amendment. Now, in the last week of the campaign, as the polls are against them, they mention the idea of a different amendment. There is no reason to take them seriously.