News

Note: The headline of this article originally stated that NUI Maynooth is a “Catholic” university. However, while it was founded as a Catholic university, and remained Catholic for nearly two centuries, it is now officially non-denominational.

MAYNOOTH, Ireland, September 19,2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth has denied access to a series of “masterclasses” that include a course on the subject, “Termination of Pregnancy: a lawful choice,” to pro-life protesters who oppose the school’s promotion of a program that contradicts Irish law on abortion.

The university also changed the name of the contentious course to “Termination: dealing with complex issues,” after being deluged with phone calls and emails from pro-life individuals across the country, who had pointed out that abortion is not lawful in Ireland.

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The lecture, which was organized by the Health Service Executive’s Crisis Pregnancy Programme, was delivered on Friday by former Planned Parenthood employee, Sherie de Burgh.

The pro-life group Youth Defence said in a press release that NUI Maynooth went to “ridiculous extremes” to exclude any dissenting voices who might oppose the promotion of abortion as a “positive option.”

“As a large group of pro-life protestors gathered outside the university this morning,” Youth Defence explained, “the administrators of the abortion masterclass literally locked the doors to the seminar and refused to allow anyone – even medical professionals and pregnancy counselors – access to the lecture, unless they had been accepted as registering for the event.

“Several doctors and pregnancy counselors who had tried to register were told that the event was ‘over-subscribed’ although only 30 people actually attended the seminar.”

“It was absolutely ridiculous,” said Youth Defence spokeswoman Íde Nic Mhathúna. “They obviously don’t want to hear any opposing views and believe that the pro-life beliefs of the majority of Irish people should be excluded while they push to establish abortion as a ‘positive option’ and a ‘lawful choice’. And our taxes are paying for all of this.”

Mhathúna said the masterclass had served as a “wake-up call to the nation, who were now keenly aware that their taxes were being squandered in funding agencies that openly campaigned for abortion and that were part and parcel of the abortion industry.”

The Youth Defence spokeswoman said that the agenda of the Health Service Executive’s Crisis Pregnancy Program needed to be exposed and that Youth Defence, working with the Life Institute and Precious Life, were determined to create a wider public awareness of that agenda.

“Most people are unaware that between €40 and €50 million in taxpayer funding has already been spent trying to market abortion as a ‘positive option’,” she said. “Or that The Irish Family Planning Association gets 55% of its income from the government. We need to change that.”

Contact Info:

Professor Philip Nolan, President
National University of Ireland
Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 708 3893
Fax: +353 1 628 6583
Email: [email protected]