DUBLIN, February 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A trio of Irish bishops have told Catholic voters to challenge candidates in the spring general elections about their position on abortion, as pressure grows for a referendum to remove protection for the unborn from the country’s constitution.
The Conference of Irish Catholic Bishops is also calling on citizens to take stock of candidates’ stance on life, though their joint message on the election ranks life issues fifth among issues worth raising and did not mention the word “abortion.” 
Bishops John Buckley of Cork and Ross, Michael Neary of Tuam, and Kevin Doran of Elphin, all issued letters to their flocks directing voters to find out where candidates stand on the pro-abortion campaign for a referendum to repeal the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment that bans abortion in most cases.
Bishop Kevin Doran: “I find it very difficult to see how any Catholic could, in good conscience, vote for a candidate or a political party whose policy it is to legalise abortion.”
David Quinn, director of the Dublin-based Iona Institute, which promotes the place of religion in Irish society, and which quoted the bishops’ comments on its website, blogged that “the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, and the Church of England bishops, both produced election guides to coincide with last year’s General Election there…But Church leaders in Ireland have become extremely reluctant to comment on politics, especially at election time.” Happily, he noted, there were exceptions such as Bishops Buckley, Doran and Neary.
Buckley wasted no time getting to the abortion issue. The opening sentence of his statement was,“It is sad that a child’s life-limiting condition is being used to promote the agenda of those who seek to legalise abortion on much wider grounds.” While he followed this with a detailed call for action on a wide range of social issues, he returned ultimately to the campaign to amend the Constitution to allow abortions in the case of unborn children with “fatal abnormalities.”
The very term, he argued, is “misleading,” since no “doctor can predict, with certainty, the lifespan of babies before they are born.” Buckley scrutinized another loaded term popular with abortion advocates, “incompatible with life,” which, he said, “implies that a baby’s life is worthless. It is sad that a child’s life-limiting condition is being used to promote the agenda of those who seek to legalise abortion on much wider grounds.”
Bishop Neary asked voters to “place a culture of life at the centre of Election 2016” by asking their candidates “whether or not they support the sacredness of every human life, and to provide clarification about defending the weak and those who are easy to otherwise dismiss, and whose constitutional protection is now at risk.” This was a reference to the push, supported by the Labour Party and some politicians in other parties, for a referendum to repeal the 30-year-old Amendment Eight. “If life is not fully respected and protected,” said Bishop Neary, “then the very basis of our society is weakened.”
Like Bishop Buckley, Bishop Doran recommended voters challenge their candidates on a broad gamut of social issues, but led with life. The first question he wanted them to ask politicians after their vote was, “How will you protect human life from the moment of conception until its natural end?” adding, “I find it very difficult to see how any Catholic could, in good conscience, vote for a candidate or a political party whose policy it is to legalise abortion.”
The Irish bishops’ joint statement on the election detailed many issues that the next government needed to address, under the headings Health, Home, Education, Security, before getting to the threatened referendum, under the heading “Human Ecology.” They wrote: “A true human ecology recognises the equal right to life of every person from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.” They went on to call the pro-life amendment in the Irish Constitution “a fundamental affirmation of equality, where the right to life of no child is considered of less value than that of another. We strongly oppose any weakening of the affirmation of the right to life of the unborn.”
Niamh Uí Bhriain, director of Southern Ireland’s Life Institute, believes the mainline parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are too smart to push for change on abortion, noting that pro-life forces gathered 30,000 for the 2015 March for Life in Dublin, while the March for Choice drew less than 3,000. “There is no public demand to repeal the Eight and the politicians know that,” she wrote in the Irish Journal last year.
Since then, however, education minister Dr. James Reilly has called for a referendum and Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he would consider it after the election this year—but only if a workable alternative amendment were provided.
Bhriain estimates “some 150,000 Irish babies have been saved by the 8th Amendment.”