Health Minister already says government will pay for abortions
By Dave Andrusko
Health Minister Simon Harris
(Picture: Hugh Russell).
It is stock and trade for pro-abortionists to minimize to the nth degree what will ensue when [fill in the blank] ensues. That even applied to something as radically decisive and agenda changing as repealing the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution which afforded equal rights to mothers and unborn children.
The implication was left that once legislation was signed amending the Constitution to remove constitutional protection for the unborn, following the referendum, abortion would be legal “only” through the 12th week and that would be pretty much it.
Come to find out after the May referendum vote decisively erased the 8th Amendment, there’s lots more in the offing.
This week Health Minister Simon Harris spelled out what all pro-lifers feared. He announced that Catholic crisis pregnancy centers will be forced to provide information on abortion when it is officially legalised in 2019.
The Irish publication, “Extra,” reported that Harris “said he expects taxpayer funded crisis pregnancy agencies to provide its users with information on abortion, regardless of their ownership or ethos.”
“I believe that crisis pregnancy agencies, regardless of who owns them or who runs them, if they’re funded by the taxpayer, should make all of the information available to women,” Harris declared.
‘Trust women, trust women to make their own decisions. We should inform women of their options and let women make their decisions.
‘Certainly any money coming from my department or from the HSE [Irish Health Service] should be for that purpose. It should be for letting women know all of the legal options that they can consider when they find themselves in a crisis.’
But that was just the start. He asked/implored/threatened pro-life legislators not to get in the way of the abortion locomotive. Harris argued that the basic structure of the legislation to be introduced in January had already been discussed prior to the referendum.
Harris also talked about abortions that were not performed in Ireland but in England. “It’s 125 days since we held the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment,” he said. “During that time more than 1,100 women have had to travel abroad to access termination.”
NRL News Today has already written about how Harris made abundantly clear last week that he wants abortions paid for by the national health system. He said that “charging for abortions would lead to private clinics popping up around the country.”
Minister Simon Harris says cost can’t be a barrier for people, and it’s his intention that abortion services will be free of charge.
He said: “I said from the start that I don’t want cost to be a barrier because if cost is a barrier you get into a situation where one of two things happen.
“You see private clinics develop, we don’t want that to happen in Ireland we want this to be part of an integrated health service, and secondly you can see people having to continue to travel.
“I want this to be provided as part of our health care system, as part of our public health care system.
Harris also declined to say how much financing would be made available. ‘Obviously, there’s a cost with all of this. Those costs will be determined both through the estimates process and through the discussions that I’ll have in terms of the contractual obligations,’ he said. ‘This needs to be resourced, it needs to be resourced adequately so that we can have safe, women-centered provision of this service in our country.’
As for the 12 week “limit,” that assurance is written on the wind. An influential report submitted last December not only recommended that the 8th Amendment be repealed but included vague recommendations that would allow abortion for a range of situations late into pregnancy.