The Supreme Court has spoken. There is no legal protection afforded by the Constitution to the baby in the womb. He or she has no rights except the right to life. This right to life is that our government want to get their hands on. That’s what the impending referendum is all about. It’s been a bad week for the unborn!
In the old days it could have been said that the Catholic Church controlled the womb. Now in a modern secular State the government want to be in control. They want it out of the Constitution where the people of Ireland placed it on 7th October 1983 when they carried a referendum to grant equal right to life of the unborn with that of the mother, saving countless lives over the last 35 years.
To gain this control they are required to de-humanise the unborn. By promoting the notion that it is not really a child but a foetus for the first 12 weeks they hope will make abortion more palatable during that period. Then there are the hard cases where they have decreed that no gestational limits should apply. These are where there is a risk to the mother’s health, rape, incest and the diagnosis of a fatal foetal condition. Actually the existing wording allows abortion in these cases.
They state their underlying principle is the make abortion safe, legal and rare copying the words uttered by Bill Clinton when he was President of the US. The “rare” aspiration has become a joke. Tacitly acknowledging this, the Minister for Health is considering the introduction of free contraception in an effort to head off the rise in unwanted pregnancies should this referendum succeed.
In the face of all this what should we do? Where is the nub of the problem? Abortionists know that they must promote the lie that the unborn is not human – only a collection of cells they say. To challenge this concept a group called the Irish Centre for Bio-ethical Reform (ICBR) are conducting a poster campaign which has two aims. The first to demonstrate that from day one of a pregnancy there is the beginning of a new, whole and unique human being with its own genetic code. The second to refute the assertion by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service that abortion is a gentle suction to remove the pregnancy. In fact, the baby is torn apart inside the mother and suctioned out in pieces.
The posters of ICBR show in clear pictorial detail both the humanity of the child and the violence of its death. So stark and irrefutable is the display that abortionists cannot bear to look at it. ICBR have sought and given interviews to the media but our media have not published any of them to date. When the display was located on the pavement outside the Irish Times the newspaper pulled down the blinds – they were unable to handle the consequences of their own editorial convictions. Similar reaction has arisen when the display was mounted outside other key locations. At the entrance to the Dial reporters took pictures but these were scarified when published.
Interestingly every major campaign in the past has required an image to bring the cause home to the public. This makes the imagery of ICBR of crucial importance.

The Bible makes no distinction between the baby in the womb and the baby in the manger. The word in the Greek ‘brephos’ applies to the baby in Mary’s womb (St Luke Chapter 1 verse 41) and the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes (St Luke Chapter 2 verse 12). There is no 12-week period of non-personhood in the Bible!
We have an amazing God who has fearfully and wonderfully made us knitting us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139 verses 13/14).
Just as God carried his people in times past so he will carry them through the difficult days of the present (Isaiah Chapter 46 verses 3-4).
“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am he,
and to grey hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
I will carry and will save”. Praise Him.