Repeal the 8th will be a wait.

Without a doubt Michéal Martin’s intervention on abortion has moved the debate much further than many in government may have wished. Martin’s speech didn’t just catch his own TD’s unawares, it caught Leo Varadkar off guard.

Dr Varadkar is now over 6 months in the Taosieach’s job.  The honeymoon is well over now although it seems Leo and his supporters don’t think so.  The wheels may well be coming off the cart slowly but surely. Leo has spent the last 9 months selling us an image of him as modern, progressive and hip, but not cool. He’s comfortable with technology and fellow national leaders. But there’s more to politics than wearing fancy socks with Justin Trudeau and standing in front of a camera for a vlog.

This week will jolt Leo. Michéal Martin has out maneuvered Leo as Dr Varadkar prefers to be known. Since his elevation to Taoiseach, Dr Varadkar needs to move on from his previous role as commentator which grabbed the media attention.  It used to be the case that he and Simon Coveney would mark one another as they both circled around the prize that would be leadership of Fine Gael. Simon would be on Morning Ireland on one issue while Leo would nail down the News at one to give us his opinion. They are both now finding out that the view from the summit is quite different to the profile from a lower slope looking upwards.

And so it is that abortion can now be added to Brexit. We all know something has been proposed but the detail has yet to be worked out.  The Dail is simply listening to speeches in response to the All party committee’s report.

Legislation will have to be agreed by the Government and then put to the Oireachtas to provide for a referendum.  There’s lots of TD’s say they want a referendum. But what will be on the ballot paper? Will we have the option to repeal? Will the public be told the laws that will be enacted in the event of a referendum to repeal?  Will the government propose their own amendment of the 8^th to provide for abortion in line with the committee’s proposals and write those into the constitution? The Dail will also have to pass legislation either way but can that legislation get through the Oireachtas?

There’s a glimpse of what is going on in the Taoiseachs mind this week. It slipped out in his statement on the Kerry Babies.  He said that because he was too young the scandal had to be explained to him recently.  The Kerry Babies Scandal came right in the middle of that era of moving statues, opposing contraception and the 1^st Divorce Referendum.  How much more does the Taoiseach need to be told? Dr Varadkar does not sound very convincing when he tells us we all have to wait to find out what he thinks. This issue needs leadership, not drift. 

And that’s exactly what is happening, it’s drifting. Already the May date for the referendum is likely to be missed.

One of my earliest campaigns was in the summer of 1983, the only summer as a student that I didn’t go away to work.  The 8^th amendment was very different to any other referendum to the constitution. At the time, and indeed still very much today, abortion was outlawed by the 1861 act.  The referendum had nothing to do with preventing abortion in Ireland. It simply wasn’t available. The scare highlighted by the pro life amendment campaign was that the Dail would legislate for abortion on demand and that the courts couldn’t be trusted to uphold the 1861 act.  Those fears have never come to pass. Because, long before Trump, Brexiteer and populism playing on fears, the guys in PLAC were the daddy of them all when it came to scare tactics.  

I want to see the 8^th amendment removed from the constitution. I want doctors to able to protect a woman’s life in all circumstances. I also want to see that victims of rape are not obliged if pregnant to carry a pregnancy nor a woman expecting a child with a FFA.  It remains to be seen whether the referendum on offer will deal with these issues, because so far, nobody knows what the cabinet is considering.

And whoever explained the Kerry Babies to Dr Varadkar should sit him down and explain the first divorce poll. In the run in to voting it was going to pass, however the money was ploughed in by those on the right, only Labour campaigned as a party for it, FF and FG sat back and it was lost.  The reason why was because no legislation accompanied the referendum. The anti divorce scare at the time was of family farms being awarded to former wives in the court.

Dr Varadkar may well be taking us down the same road over abortion, either wittingly or unwittingly. 

His tribute to the late Liam Cosgrave specifically highlighted that Mr Cosgrave was one of 2 cabinet members who opposed his own government on the issue of contraception. Are we about to see a 21^st century version of a Taoiseach undoing his own government’s proposals on social issues?

If so he may find the electorate not as understanding as they were 40 years ago.