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More Pro-Life Voices Plead for No Vote in Irish Lisbon Referendum

By Hilary White

DUBLIN, September 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two more Irish pro-life voices have joined the chorus of those urging the Irish voters to reject the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Friday's referendum. Pro-life former MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon and the group Ireland for Life have warned that the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's replacement for the defeated Constitution, poses a threat to the country's constitutional protections of the unborn, as well as national sovereignty.

"I am not afraid to vote No to Lisbon," said Scallon on Tuesday. Referring to a set of promises made to Irish politicians by EU officials, Scallon said, "The people must know the truth, that the guarantees are worthless and that the EU will have primacy over Ireland's Constitution."

"Voting No," she said, "will protect Ireland's constitution in matters such as the definition and protection of the family; children's rights; parent's rights; the protection of life and the child embryo; the right to a fair trial; the right to strike etc."

Mrs. Mary Thornton, spokesman for Ireland for Life, backed Scallon's position, saying, "No to Lisbon is the only means of ensuring the continued protection of the right to life of the child embryo, in Ireland."

Ireland for Life also dismissed the government's "guarantees," saying that they are "not part of the Lisbon Treaty nor any other treaty and they have no legal effect in EU law."

Thornton pointed to Declaration 17 of the Treaty that says, "The treaties and the law adopted by the EU on the basis of the treaties have primacy over the law of the member states."

On January 14th, 2009, the European Parliament, including Irish MEPs, approved the Catania Resolution urging states to recognise "abortion rights."  The resolution was based on the provisions of the EU's Fundamental Charter of Human Rights that will become legally binding on member states under Article 6 of the Treaty.

Scallon warned that the Treaty is merely the next step towards creating a pan-European superstate in which individual member states will no longer have the right to make or keep their own laws. "Lisbon is not about tidying up the democratic process - it is about tying up the democratic process."

"A simple name change will not change the fact that adopting the Lisbon Treaty will undermine our sovereignty and political independence and profoundly weaken Ireland's position in Europe and is the path to a European Constitution, having primacy over Ireland's Constitution," she added.

Scallon quoted a shocking admission made in 2007 by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing after the defeat of the EU Constitution by referenda in France and the Netherlands: "Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text - but will be hidden or disguised in some way." Despite initial assurances that Lisbon was a different document, one by one European political elites admitted that it is essentially identical to the defeated Constitution.

Scallon specifically warned that the Treaty will give the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights primacy over national laws and be legally binding on member states. Pro-life groups continue to warn that this is the source of the threat against Ireland's constitutional protections for the unborn.

"The fact is," she said, "in the case of conflict between the rights contained in the EU Charter and those rights contained in our Irish constitution, the Lisbon Treaty will give the final say to the EU Court of Justice over our Irish Supreme Court."

Thornton noted the irony that, having been assured by the government that there is no threat to Ireland's pro-life laws, the Irish voters will be going to the polls on the same day that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will be voting on a document meant to expand abortion into all member states by 2015. 

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