Voting on Abortion Again and Again and Again: Campaign Efforts and Effects

Abstract

On 25 May 2018 the Eighth Amendment of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Irish Constitution, was repealed in a referendum vote, and abortion provision in Ireland was significantly liberalized as a result. Repeal had been expected. The Yes side led opinion polls during the campaign, and polls over many years indicated that attitudes to abortion had been transformed from the conservative views that dominated in the 1980s. But the size of the Yes victory and the large turnout among voters were a surprise to many. Abortion policy has assailed Irish politics for nearly four decades, and the 2018 referendum was the sixth time a question had been put to the people on aspects of abortion policy since the first referendum in 1983. By 2018 the central issues had been extensively debated over a long period, but with notable evidence of a change in tone and complexity. Early debates leading to the 1983 vote were marked by absolutist arguments and traditional belief systems on the part of the dominant anti-abortion side, and the first referendum campaign has been singled out for its “rancor and divisiveness.” However, by the time of the fifth abortion referendum in 2002, Fiachra Kennedy could characterize the debate as comprised of a “series of moral conundrums.” A succession of “hard cases,” legal judgments, and sustained campaigns inside and outside of parliament led the