The Positive Effects of Article 40.3.3 – A Culture of Life.

Protecting Human Life. (From A Statement of the Irish Bishops, March 2018)

"Many thousands of Irish people are alive as a direct result of the enactment of the Eighth Amendment, who might otherwise never have been born.

This is partly because there was an inevitable interval between the thought of having an abortion and that thought being put into action. That interval allowed women, often with the support of family members, partners or pregnancy care agencies such as our own Cura, to consider other, more constructive, options.

Quite apart from the numbers of lives that were saved as a result of Article 40.3.3, expectant parents who experience a crisis pregnancy have been culturally supported in making the decision in favour of life and in avoiding a decision which many of them may have regretted afterwards.

This cultural support was not simply in the fact that Irish society had made a public statement of principle about the right to life, but also because the structures of society, including healthcare facilities, were not deployed, as they are in many countries, to promote or facilitate the taking of life as an appropriate social response to crisis pregnancy."