The Eighth Amendment - Hot-button issue

Today, unusually, we devote a full page to readers’ letters. 

The subject is the potential repeal or modification of the Irish Constitution’s Eighth Amendment which places an equal right to life on pregnant mother and unborn child.

No topic has stimulated a larger postbag in 2017.

Not Brexit and borders, not a new Taoiseach, not Donald Trump, not scandals involving child protection, or the Garda, or homelessness. Nothing generates more heat than Article 40.3.3

In part this is testament to the organisational efficiency and energy of campaigners. Letters can sometimes have a boilerplate feel to their arguments and this has been accelerated through social media.

Volumes have risen significantly since the Oireachtas committee voted not to retain the Eighth in full and there were significant interventions from Professor Peter Boylan and Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran.

Both the pro- and anti-repeal movements like to claim media bias against their cause.

In the Irish Examiner this is not true, and we shall demonstrate this during the months leading to a referendum which will say much about Ireland as it enters the third decade of the 21st century.