Illegal Pro-Abortion Mural Calling for Repeal of 8th Amendment is Removed
A mural painted on an arts centre in Dublin, Ireland has been removed after it was found to be in contravention with the city’s plannings laws.
The mural in question read “Repeal the 8th” and was painted in order to promote the campaign by some activists to have the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution removed. As regular readers of LifeNews will know, the 8th Amendment is a beacon of human rights protection internationally as it provides legal protection to both unborn babies and their mothers.
Since the mural was erected a few weeks ago on the front wall of the Project Arts Centre in Dublin, this writer understands that the Centre was inundated with complaints. No doubt many of these related to the fact that the Centre receives state funding and as such is a publicly funded entity which should not take a position on such a controversial issue as abortion.
There is a much more important reason why murals like this should not be painted in public places though. They don’t address any of the important issues that we should be discussing – issues like abortion regret, or the fact that introducing abortion into a country inevitably leads to discrimination against its most vulnerable members. To know that that’s true, we only have to look to England and Wales, where recent figures show that 90% of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome. That’s a very real aspect of the abortion debate, but it won’t be represented in a mural by Irish prochoice activists any time soon.
Ultimately, the mural was removed today when Dublin City Council served a warning notice to say that it was in violation of the Planning and Development Acts (2000 – 2015).
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The Pro Life Campaign issued a statement where they said that “The right decision has been taken to remove this highly political mural which had everything to do with campaigning and nothing to do with art. The claims by some that its removal represents censorship are laughable.
“The Project Arts Centre should belong to everyone and not have such a close-minded attitude on what constitutes freedom of expression. In its current make up, there is not the slightest chance that it would have allowed, for example, a mural being placed on its building giving voice to women’s feelings of abortion regret. It is issues like this that deserve proper attention given the absurd and unacceptable way the Project Arts Centre has behaved in recent weeks.”
The fuss around the painting and removal of this mural would at least be justified if it resulted in highlighting the pain suffered by women who deeply grieve the loss of their babies. That’s what we need to focus on at present in Ireland, not the demands by a small group of activists who want to see abortion liberalised regardless of the consequences for women and babies.
