Ireland’s top celebrities have come out in favor of repealing the country’s Eighth Amendment, which protects unborn children from abortion.
Following the band U2’s endorsement of legalizing the killing of unborn children, actor Liam Neeson — the face of Oskar Schindler in the Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List” — says that the time has come to “stand up for what’s right.” In a letter to the Independent this past Sunday, Neeson called the Eighth Amendment an “injustice” that must be corrected.
“There are times when we must stand for what is right,” Neeson claimed. “When the obvious injustice of a situation demands that we do so. For me, the upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment is one of those times. A time to stand up and be counted. A moment when men must stand with women.”
Throughout Neeson’s letter, he describes abortion as a woman’s right, never once mentioning the human right to life. At one point, strangely, he touts his past work as a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador for “children’s rights.” And then, as if advising people to not educate themselves, Neeson then advises that “there’s nothing wrong in not knowing everything there is to know about abortion.”
Translation: Being ignorant of the harsh reality of abortion is secondary to the issue.
Finally, Neeson frames repealing the Eighth Amendment in terms of overthrowing the patriarchy by touting several myths and half-truths that were never a characteristic of Ireland.
“Yes, gone are the days when our country used to drop our pregnant women and girls off at the gates of institutions that hid them behind high walls,” Neeson wrote. “Yet still, we drop our girlfriends, wives, daughters, sisters and mothers to the departure gates at Dublin Airport, forcing them to travel to other countries to access basic healthcare services and denying them necessary aftercare upon their return.”
LifeNews refuted this false claim fairly quickly:
This is not true. Earlier this spring, Dr. Eamon McGuinness, a former chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Ireland, wrote a column for the Irish Times refuting these exact claims.
If the laws truly were putting women at risk, McGuiness said he “would be leading the charge to have them expunged from the Constitution. A constitutional restriction on my ability, or the ability of any of my colleagues, to save the life of a pregnant woman would indeed be intolerable.”
Since 1983, when Ireland passed its Eighth Amendment to protect unborn babies’ right to life, McGuinness said the country has become one of the safest places in the world for pregnant mothers.
Ireland will vote whether or not to repeal the Eighth on May 25. Business Insider reports that 47% of Irish voters will vote to repeal, down 9 points from an earlier poll. Only 28% will vote to retain while another 20% remain undecided.
Last week, the band U2 also came out in favor of repeal.