Over 85 percent of Irish people support limited abortion

It's obvious that many people commenting here have no involvement with Ireland and no understanding of the issues.

Over 85% of IC articles have a lefty agenda.

i agree with Rose528: until men can carry and give birth, they should have NO rights in what happens....unless, the mother can NOT speak for herself...and then, the father has the hard choice to make....it's really sad, that women DON'T have more value in this world...and imo, when the life of the mother is at risk and there are GOOD signs that the baby is going to die, then the doctors should do EVERYTHING possible to SAVE THE MOTHER....if it's possible later for her to get pregnant again, GREAT.....i'm SICK of people using the bible as a way to RULE the people...i.e. women have NO VALUE....men RULE everything and such.....we ARE NOT SLAVES TO MEN ANY MORE...AND WE HAVE RIGHTS. ALISA

The headline should read: "Over 85 percent of Irish people support abortion when the life of the mother is at risk." That's a lot different than the current headline!

imo, a woman should have the RIGHT to decide what is BEST for her....and it should be between her and the doctor and whoever she prays to...incest, rape, the life of the mother or they just CAN'T afford to have the child....and all of those who are against abortion: are YOU GOING TO PAY FOR THE HEALTH CARE FOR THE MOTHER AND THEN RAISE THE CHILD, IF SHE DECIDES TO PUT IT UP FOR ADOPTION?... ALISA

well Seamusdenais you wake a up a woman died because your wonderful pro lifers decided the fetus wa smore important then the woman guess what both died WAKE UP PRO LIFE! if this woman was my family u would never ever live a peacefull life u freaking Hypocrites!

Why does a child have to be butchered in a womb? Why couldn't the HSE have taken the foetus out of the mother and placed it in some incubator where it would have developed. The Catholic Church knows damn well this is possible. WAKE UP PRO CHOICE

Oh, people of Ireland, PLEASE don't go there! Here in America we have accepted the lie that abortion is a necessary evil. First they say it is only for extreme cases where the mother may die, or in a case of incest, but almost no abortions are performed for those reasons. Do you really think the best, most talented doctors become abortionists? A study done here in America showed abortion doctors have a high rate of drug and alcohol use and barely made it out of medical school. Clinics cover up the horror stories of maimed women and babies who survive the procedure and are left to die. When it becomes easy to kill the unborn, it also becomes easy to kill the elderly and handicapped. We have the proof right here in America. Should I even bother to mention how it offends and outrages Our Lord, Who died in agony on the Cross for us?

Gearoid!! If the life of the mother or the child has to be sacrificed who wins out and who makes that decision? A straight answer please no fudging.

@Eiriamach, I'm afraid you are twisting the meaning of my words again by trying to associate them disingenuously with a particular callous outlook in regards to the lives of pregnant women. Women who go through such difficulties should be helped in a holistic fashion and should be offered more than the local abortuary. There are two physical lives at stake, namely the mother's and the child's. Certainly the mother has "autonomy" in relation to her pregnancy, but the freedom is not boundless as it effects other lives, namely the child in the womb. We hear a lot about "autonomy" and "rights" but little about "responsibility" from the "pro-choice" crowd. The first recourse for some ideologues, seems to be the abortion clinic without thinking of more moral and viable alternatives like counselling, which can in effect help women who are struggling mentally with pregnancies, to see the child in their womb as an invaluable addition and a boon to her life. "Suicidal" feelings in pregnant women, can be caused by a number of factors which are treatable, e.g. lack of support, spousal pressure violence, mental depression or the effects of coming off medication. Psychologists or psychiatrists will not be united in their approaches to the resolution of these issues. Situations where suicide is cited as a reason for abortion, are very rare and so these "exceptions" to the rule are being used as a means of generalizing in relation to the need for this grave evil(abortion) to be introduced so that the rule can be changed. I hope that Ireland does not fall into this trap.

To Eiriamach. In order to save yourself any further anguish about the welfare of pregnant women and women in childbirth in Ireland, take a few minutes to look up the international childbirth statistics. Ireland is almost at the top of the safety list, with nearly the lowest per capita deaths of mothers or infants. I am sure you will now come up with some other means of making some supposedly superior moral stance, but at least even you will know the true facts, and that you are talking rubbish.

I keep saying it; there is little irish truth in irishcentral.com. You people are full of skewed ideological bullshit. People should find other sites if they want the truth about ireland. Shame on michael brown of spiritdaily for always linking to this crap.

No one thinks abortion is beneficial Kateiemac, you disingenuous halfwit. Abortion isn't an investment, it's a brutally hard choice faced by women where the alternatives are even worse. If the choice is between the mother living due to a termination (and it is often the case) or dying because the termination is refused, then one life should be spared if both can not be. You can't countenance the hard complexities of life because you're a fundamentalist.

Gearoid4 thinks suicide should not be considered a life-threatening condition warranting access to abortion because "even two psychologists or psychiatrists may never agree on in terms of resolution." His sexist assumption that medical authorities and psychiatric authorities and religious authorities should decide whether pregnant women live or die completely disregards the most basic of human rights that Gearoid considers his Creator endowed men with. Did the same Creator not equally endow women with the right to life? There is no human authority who ever can be entitled to decide to let a pregnant woman die when an abortion can save her. Women are morally autonomous human beings. It's long past time for laws everywhere to respect women's right to life, the most basic of human rights, not to be vetoed by any psychiatrist, physician, committee member, or churchman.

From RTE: "The report of the confidential Maternal Death Enquiry (MDE) in Ireland says that there were 25 maternal deaths for the period 2009-2011.... two of these deaths were due to suicide." This tally does not include women who fled to the UK or the mainland for medical-crisis abortions, nor does it count women who died in crisis pregnancies outside of Ireland. How many deaths of pregnant women are acceptable to the Irish? Do the Irish consider it a morally relevant fact that prompt abortion saves the lives of women in cases like Savita's and destroys no lives that can be saved? And if "pro-lifers" do not consider it morally relevant, what does that tell us about the (dis)value they place on the lives of women?