Reader's Blog: The Eighth caused 35 years of misery

Victoria White takes issue with an RTÉ News report on the referendum result, specifically with the assertion that the Eighth Amendment was “the brainchild of Catholic lay activists”. She says “this makes me so angry I find it hard to stay lucid,” an assertion which is confirmed by a reading of her column.

I would recommend that Ms White read Tom Hesketh’s 1990 book, The Second Partitioning of Ireland. Written from a pro-amendment perspective, it is considered the definitive text on the 1983 referendum. Hesketh says the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign (PLAC) was established in 1981 by 13 organisations: the Irish Pro-Life Movement; the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children; the Congress of Catholic Secondary School Parents’ Associations; the Irish Catholic Doctors’ Guild; the Guild of Catholic Nurses; the Guild of Catholic Pharmacists; the Catholic Young Men’s Society; the St Thomas More Society; the National Association of the Ovulation Method; the Council of Social Concern; the Irish Responsible Society; the St Joseph’s Young Priests Society; and the Christian Brothers Schools Parents’ Federation.