Mayo County Council has unanimously passed a resolution opposing the
legalisation of abortion and a similar motion was passed almost
unanimously by Castlebar Town Council.
The motion was proposed by independent councillor Frank Durcan, a
member of both bodies, and stated that the members, “resolve, in keeping
with the will of the Irish people as emphatically expressed in the
referendum of 1983, to oppose any form of legalisation of abortion under
any circumstances.”
Proposing it, Mr Durcan said it is, “a humanitarian issue” and he was
asking the council to, “guarantee the right of life from conception in
the womb.”
Fellow-independent Gerry Ginty seconded, saying he saw, “the
killing of any child as murder.”
Fianna Fáil whip on the council, Cllr Michael McNamara welcomed the
motion and pledged full support, while Fine Gael’s Cllr Joe Mellett said
he would have preferred to wait until the expert panel review group
report was to hand, but added that his party has, “no problem”
supporting Cllr Durcan’s motion.
When the council passed the motion without dissension, a group of
pro-life activists in the public gallery applauded. When the same
motion was put to members of Castlebar Town Council, Labour councillor
Harry Barrett was the only member to oppose it.
He said he had, “a major problem” with the motion, in that the
European Court of Justice had found in 2010 that Irish law breached
human rights of a cancer patient whose life was under threat because of
pregnancy, and an expert group was due to report on what action should
be taken on foot of that decision.
There are, “certain circumstances," Mr Barrett said, where abortion,
“may be always necessary,” citing as examples rape, cancer patients or
ectopic pregnancy, despite the fact that eminent obstetricians have
stated on a number of occasions they never consider termination of a
pregnancy in the case for example, of an ectopic pregnancy as abortion. I always look at it as is if it was my wife or my daughter and what
options would I hope to see,” he added.
Cllr Barrett proposed that Cllr
Durcan’s motion be put aside until the expert group had reported.
This
proposal failed to get a seconder from the other eight council members
present but forced a vote on Cllr Durcan’s motion, which the council
went on to pass by a margin of six to one, with the town’s mayor, Cllr
Brendan Heneghan abstaining.
The two councils join county councils in Donegal and Monaghan who recently passed similar motions.