Paul KeenanThe Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has expressed concern at the inclusion in last weekend’s Citizens’ Assembly meeting of a pro-abortion campaigner who “plans to politicise” the process.
As the 99 members of the assembly gathered in Dublin Castle, the PLC revealed that “a very prominent pro-choice campaigner has been tweeting about his membership of the Citizens’ Assembly and how he plans to politicise it.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic after the close of the inaugural meeting, the PLC’s Cora Sherlock said the revelation served to “show that the fears and concerns people had about the selection process and the entire process have been confirmed”.
“What is very important is that this person is a campaigner, not just someone who is inclined one way or another,” she said. “It’s very clear from his Twitter feed that he’s been campaigning for some time on the issue.”
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And she added: “We’d be having a very different conversation if, say, Cora Sherlock had been selected to sit on the assembly. I think people would see a problem with that.”
Ms Sherlock went on to state that the PLC will now wait to see what findings the assembly chair, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, will come back with based on the group’s revelation, but added her hope that “in terms of the assembly, now that it is up and running, it spends an equal amount of time looking at all the good things the Eighth Amendment has done as well as looking at ways to dismantle it”. She went on to repeat previous criticism of the assembly that “99 people is not a representative sample of society. We would not take any notice of an opinion poll based on the opinions of 99 people.”
Having been made aware of the PLC’s finding, Ms Justice Laffoy warned that the integrity of the Citizens’ Assembly could be undermined if it proves to be true.