Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The recent announcement by the US Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case is a positive one as it finally ends the wrong-headed Roe v. Wade judgment of 1973 which inferred a constitutional right to abortion under the heading of a right to privacy. That was a legal aberration from the beginning, one that had an extremely negative impact on human rights and unborn life for 50 years. It must be borne in mind that approximately 21,000 Irish unborn babies have had their lives prematurely ended by abortion in the first three years of Ireland's abortion regime. The sky-rocketing human life impact of the abortion law here must prompt serious reflection. There has been a serious failure to provide alternatives to abortion or to find a way to reduce these startling abortion rates. The Government has buried its head in the sand on this issue. For more than a year, it has outsourced any issues that have arisen since the introduction of legal abortion to the chimeric promise of a three-year review.The review has since commenced and is in fact uninterested in addressing serious issues. Instead, its brief has been to concentrate on expanding abortion to the detriment of grasping the nettle and seeking to curb the worst excesses of Irish abortion laws. Saturday's Rally for Life saw thousand of people march from Parnell Square, down O'Connell Street and onto Custom House Quay welcoming the US judgment and asking our politicians to thoroughly re-examine the protection that we offer to life in Ireland. Unfortunately, a lot of the rhetoric reacting to the decision has been extremely unhelpful and alarmist. The Taoiseach talked about the appointment of far right justices to the Supreme Court and warned of a politicisation of the court. This is an unfounded insinuation and suggests his characterisation of politicisation only works in one direction.

In the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, the Supreme Court returned the issue of deciding abortion policy to the people through their elected representatives at state and federal level. It strongly echoes the 2018 referendum outcomes that empowered the Oireachtas alone to decide Ireland's abortion policy. The Government should objectively look at the situation for what it is and not try to stoke up culture war arguments. The global narrative is clearly shifting and I hope the impact of the recent decision in the US will produce further, greater efforts to protect human life in Ireland and elsewhere.