FF 
pro-life
 votes
 send
 vital
 ‘cultural 
message’
 –
 bishop

Bishop Kevin Doran has welcomed two votes at Fianna Fáil’s Ard Fheis in support of Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn, saying that they have sent an important message about the right to speak of the right to life.

Party members voted by three to one to back a motion urging the party “to oppose any attempt to diminish the constitutional rights of the unborn”, while a second motion backing a “woman’s right to choose” was heavily defeated.

“From a cultural point of view, this is quite significant,” Dr Doran said. “It sends out a message that it’s ‘actually okay’ to take a public stance in favour of the right to life of the unborn. Now we haven’t heard that for quite a while. Hopefully others will take courage from this.”

The Elphin bishop told The Irish Catholic that the wider importance of their vote lay in how it highlighted a determination to protect the rights of life of both mothers and unborn children is not a fringe phenomenon.

“Something which the commentariat have held to be ‘untenable and unspeakable’ – support for the right to life in all cases – has been publicly endorsed,” he said.