Members of the farming community, including a former president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), have backed a Yes vote in Friday’s referendum on the Eighth Amendment. The Amendment, also known as Article 40.3.3, was inserted into the Constitution in a referendum in 1983. It gives an equal right to life to the mother and the unborn, and prohibits abortion. The electorate will be asked to vote on whether they want to remove it and allow the Oireachtas make provision in law to regulate the termination of pregnancy. We need to bring it home and deal with it at home.”Pippa Hackett, the Green Party’s spokeswoman on agriculture, said a Yes vote “will not change anything for the woman who is morally or spiritually attached to continuing with her pregnancy.

Source: The Irish Times May 23, 2018 15:11 UTC