DUBLIN, May 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Members of Ireland’s leading pro-life organization, Youth Defence, say they were delighted to hear that a self-described abortion campaigning member of the Irish parliament is concerned about the youthfulness of the country's pro-life movement.
Labour TD Anne Ferris told the Irish Independent that it is the younger generation of pro-life activists who most worry her. She singled out Youth Defence and their billboard public information campaigns, indicating they have been effective enough even to influence her own daughter.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the Youth Defence billboards?” she asked. She said her own 27 year-old daughter had been affected by them: “She said to me, ‘You know, if I had had an abortion, and saw this I’d be devastated, you know, even though I made the right decision.’”
“A lot of people think it’s elderly people who are against it,” she added, “but the elderly people of say the Eighties – they're mostly dead, you know.
“It’s the young people – like in Youth Defence – that scare me…Totally right wing. You know, they really are scary.”
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One Youth Defense worker named Katie responded, “YD aren't a bit scary – unless you want to kill babies. And abortion supporters are just scared because we are raising the next generation up for Life.”
Another young activist, Pat, told LifeSiteNews.com, “Labour politicians are desperate to get any young members. What’s really scary for them is that young people are pro-life, and that we’re committed to this cause.”
Ferris again admitted that the new abortion legislation proposed this week is only the first step, a wedge in the door towards a totally liberalized abortion regime in Ireland in the British model.
Despite the government’s attempt at soft-pedaling, Ferris said that when the bill passes, she will celebrate it as a major victory for her favourite cause. “I'll go out and drink a large bottle of champagne,” she said.
“We will legislate certainly for what the European Court has told us to and then we can go further than that…People hate change in any form, but we get the first part done and then we will go on to the next bit.”
“It’s like taking baby steps,” she said. “You know, this is the first thing we’re going to get in.”
“And we will. We will do it. I made it quite clear to our leadership that if we don’t even get the first part done in this term – in this five-year term, we've four years left – I will leave the Labour Party.”
Ferris confirmed that abortion is the major motivating force in her political career: “I’ve been lobbying for this since forever almost, you know all my adult life nearly.”