2018 Irish 8th Amendment (Abortion) Referendum

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Ireland is having a referendum in late May on whether to repeal the 8th Amendment, which constitutionally protects unborn babies from abortion.  While repealing it would not instantly legalize abortion, the government plans to introduce a bill legalizing elective first-term abortions should the 8th Amendment be repealed.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Polls indicate it'll be repealed, but I'm not 100% sure. Ireland is still a very religious and socially conservative country compared to most of the West. Plus we may see a Brexit type situation too.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Polls indicate it'll be repealed, but I'm not 100% sure. Ireland is still a very religious and socially conservative country compared to most of the West. Plus we may see a Brexit type situation too.

In fact, the authors of one of the polls said that they expect it to significantly tighten:
https://www.redcresearch.com/battle-repeal-8th/

And the pro-repeal side is expecting a close race:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/together-for-yes-campaign-expects-result-of-abortion-referendum-will-be-close-836421.html

[MAINEiac4434]

Polls usually overestimate the “liberal” option in the ethic-style referenda. We’ll see what happens.

[EPG]

Ireland is having a referendum in late May on whether to repeal the 8th Amendment, which constitutionally protects unborn babies from abortion.

Nope, only in cases where the life of the mother is not at risk. So not permitted in cases where the health of the mother is at risk, or where risk to life is not certain, or incest, rape, etc. or for any other reason.

Everybody expects the poll numbers to tighten, but that's based on historical experience and conventional wisdom, rather than anything particular to this issue. Furthermore, almost any poll can be made fit the tightening narrative, if you fiddle with the voter turnout certainty numbers. Much more relevant is the risk that the polls are just bafflingly wrong, which happens often. The gay marriage referendum polls were quite accurate by the end, though not at all precise. Many more times, the polls were just completely wrong by large double-digits (even in the week prior to polling).

[EPG]

A poll has been released: with the caveat that polling referendums is frequently, but unpredictably, inaccurate, the main figures are 47 Yes to 28 No, with 20 explicitly undecided. More surprising than the headline figures, which agree with recent polls, is that the undecided voters claim to be more sympathetic to Yes than No, suggesting a Yes result comparable to the marriage referendum. This I find very hard to believe, but there you go.

FYI, votes are cast on 25 May.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yeah, I doubt it will be as overwhelming as the SSM vote (although I do think there will be a narrow win for YES). In SSM, the No campaign never really managed to actually make a coherent point that could potentially defeat the "why can''t people who love each other marry each other" argument, especially one that could appeal to seculars (which is why they eventually were reduced to complaining about people on Twitter being mean). The "abortion is like eugenics against Down Syndrome kids" argument, as manipulative as it may seem, definitely is more compelling than anything the Iona Institute or whatever came up with, and I don't know if the Yes campaign knows what to do about it.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

When undecideds were excluded the results were

Repeal: 63%
Retain: 37%

I think it's safe to say that the repeal side is going to win but it will be closer than SSM.

[Frodo]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?    

[Lachi]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?   

Probably hurt.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?   

Probably hurt help.

[Skill and Chance]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?   

Probably hurt.

Really?  Isn't this a rural/urban issue in Europe as well, and with stronger Catholic than Protestant opposition to abortion in communities of similar density to boot?

[MAINEiac4434]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?    

Evangelical Protestants would probably be more against it than Catholics. Remember, the DUP are young-earth creationists.

[TJ in Oregon]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?   

Probably hurt.

Really?  Isn't this a rural/urban issue in Europe as well, and with stronger Catholic than Protestant opposition to abortion in communities of similar density to boot?

NI is pretty consistently more socially conservative across the Catholic/Protestant divide than the Republic. NI being part of the Republic would bolster the pro-life side.

[EPG]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?    

It's very hard to say, given that we don't even know how ROI will vote, and turnout in NI can also vary by issue. The historical facts are that as part of a larger state, with occasional pressure from a minority in Westminster to harmonise abortion law to the rest of the UK, NI has retained the same prohibition-in-practice as ROI, in part through anti-abortion agitation and community pressure against abortion clinics to close them down. All the grand sociological facts about different demographics don't matter here: the DUP and SDLP in particular are strongly pro-life, whereas in Alliance and the UUP it's a matter for legislator conscience, while SF naturally agrees with whatever the leadership says or they quit the party.

[sinngael]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?    

It's very hard to say, given that we don't even know how ROI will vote, and turnout in NI can also vary by issue. The historical facts are that as part of a larger state, with occasional pressure from a minority in Westminster to harmonise abortion law to the rest of the UK, NI has retained the same prohibition-in-practice as ROI, in part through anti-abortion agitation and community pressure against abortion clinics to close them down. All the grand sociological facts about different demographics don't matter here: the DUP and SDLP in particular are strongly pro-life, whereas in Alliance and the UUP it's a matter for legislator conscience, while SF naturally agrees with whatever the leadership says or they quit the party.

Would the SDLP really be strongly pro life? I thought their middle class vote would be fairly Liberal in social questions.

[ObserverIE]

To take a hypothetical, if Northern Ireland were part of the Republic of Ireland, would that hurt or help efforts to repeal the abortion law?    

It's very hard to say, given that we don't even know how ROI will vote, and turnout in NI can also vary by issue. The historical facts are that as part of a larger state, with occasional pressure from a minority in Westminster to harmonise abortion law to the rest of the UK, NI has retained the same prohibition-in-practice as ROI, in part through anti-abortion agitation and community pressure against abortion clinics to close them down. All the grand sociological facts about different demographics don't matter here: the DUP and SDLP in particular are strongly pro-life, whereas in Alliance and the UUP it's a matter for legislator conscience, while SF naturally agrees with whatever the leadership says or they quit the party.

Would the SDLP really be strongly pro life? I thought their middle class vote would be fairly Liberal in social questions.

Middle-class "cultural Catholics" in Northern Ireland for whom social liberalism is the be-all and end-all will probably vote for Alliance or (where they're present) the Greens, and widespread abortion availability is nowhere near as popular a cause as gay marriage - anyone looking at referendum posters at the moment will struggle to find a Yes poster mentioning the A-word or dealing in anything except the most circuitous euphemisms whereas the No posters are quite direct about what they're opposing. We don't (yet) have a politics in Ireland where economic and social liberalism march together in lockstep in the way that the United States has.

What opinion polling there's been doesn't show a major divergence in attitudes between north and south, although northern Protestants tend to be relatively more hostile to gay marriage and northern Catholics relatively more hostile to abortion.

[EPG]

Well, the Yes posters are very clear what they support: expand medical care and give women choice. Almost nobody is "pro-abortion", supportive of abortion as a systemic policy, in any country actually; I suppose some anti-natalist governments were. But this is a distinction many are content to miss in order to promulgate the usual myths about politicians being lyin' Hillarys, or a psycho Jewish Soros conspiracy.

[DC Al Fine]

Well, the Yes posters are very clear what they support: expand medical care and give women choice. Almost nobody is "pro-abortion", supportive of abortion as a systemic policy, in any country actually; I suppose some anti-natalist governments were. But this is a distinction many are content to miss in order to promulgate the usual myths about politicians being lyin' Hillarys, or a psycho Jewish Soros conspiracy.

You're missing the point entirely.

Yes favours expanding medical care for and giving women choice to do what exactly? The what matters here. It's not giving choice to obtain codeine cough syrup or expanding palliative care. Its choice to obtain an abortion.

The fact that Yes is avoiding the relatively neutral "A word" in their campaign, while No is banging the drum on it says a lot about the state of Irish culture. Yes euphemizing what their cause is indicates that the Irish are not nearly as comfortable with abortion as they are gay marriage as Observer indicated.

[ObserverIE]

Well, the Yes posters are very clear what they support: expand medical care and give women choice. Almost nobody is "pro-abortion", supportive of abortion as a systemic policy, in any country actually; I suppose some anti-natalist governments were. But this is a distinction many are content to miss in order to promulgate the usual myths about politicians being lyin' Hillarys, or a psycho Jewish Soros conspiracy.

Other than by the Trots, choice isn't being mentioned and the focus is pretty exclusively on hard cases. I'm pointing out that support for the principle of abortion without restrictions among the general population is fairly weak (21% in an Irish Times opinion poll last year with 67% opposed) so the messaging is necessarily circumspect to the point of avoidance.

I'm not an anti-semite or even a decided voter yet, by the way, but thanks for the guilt by association.

[DavidB.]

But this is a distinction many are content to miss in order to promulgate the usual myths about politicians being lyin' Hillarys, or a psycho Jewish Soros conspiracy.

That's a nice strawman right there.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

U2 endorsed the Yes campaign

https://twitter.com/U2/status/991432734710132737

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Any updates?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Any updates?

A recent poll had Yes's lead down to 11 points and below 50%.  Yes probably remains a favorite, but it is tightening and there is a tendency for most undecideds on initiatives to break towards No.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

This article seems to paint a morbid picture for the No campaign:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/no-sign-of-shift-in-abortion-referendum-that-no-campaigners-need-1.3495143

What it's basically saying is that the No side probably doesn't have the numbers to win. Their campaigning strategy of screaming "dead babies" is probably not going to appeal to the undecideds and that if we were to see a large shift of momentum that signaled a No win it would've happened by now.

The undecideds sympathize more with the Yes campaigners because they too want to relax Ireland's abortion laws, just not exactly the extent to which the government is proposing. They also talk about how the Yes side has been far better campaigning for the referendum and have chosen a better path at appealing to the middle ground.