Extreme voices are demeaning debate

It may be a forlorn hope, but it is nonetheless important to advocate that the debate on the Eighth Amendment be at least civilised and that campaigners treat each other with the respect and dignity they would demand from their opponents.

Sadly, it may be too late. At least three Dublin hotels have cancelled bookings for various meetings because of “intimidation” by rival factions.

A hotel in Cork would not discuss the issue and declined to confirm that a scheduled meeting would go ahead today.

In one instance, it was suggested that private social media accounts of hotel staff were targeted to create an atmosphere of threat that left their employers with no option but to cancel a booking.

It might be a tad cynical to suggest that cancellations are contrived to generate publicity but the nature of the debate, and the high emotions in play justify that suspicion. The vicious nature of earlier campaigns raise these suspicions too.

Abortion may be the primary issue but the principle of free speech and the freedom to safely express views that some  fellow citizens might find offensive are at stake too.

That is especially so as anonymous online abuse has become such an unwelcome feature of what passes for public debate today.

If proponents of both arguments realised that how an argument is presented can be as influential as the argument itself it might curb the worst excesses — but in today’s fraught Ireland that seems yet another forlorn hope.