Comrades,
% of Yes vote by constituency, abortion referendum 24 May 2018. Source: Irish Referendum Commission.
Comrades,
The Irish seem to have a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward the Miracle of Democracy.
They have no independent Electoral Commission - they've even had a Constitutional Convention to try to set one up, with no result.
Elections are currently run by a higgeldy-piggeldy collection of Govt. Depts and agencies that think they have a finger in the democratic pie; even the Garda have the responsibility of policing the polling stations.
So, every time they want to get a referendum going, a brand new Referendum Commission has to be set up each time to run the show, charged with presenting both sides of the argument evenhandedly without fear or favour.
And they also have an odd history of referendum voting.
Everyone knows the Irish went rainbow and approved of same-sex marriage [which required constitutional change] long before Australia had the entirely unnecessary and stoopid "postal survey" just to change the Marriage Act, that could have been easily done by a simple majority vote in the Parliament.
And still we have this strange notion of the Irish as a backward conservative society - wrong! - they approved of all sexes shagging each other with gay abandon within the institution of marriage by 62.07% with not a single constituency voting NO, while Australia approved it by 61.6%, with a very substantial NO vote in New South Wales.
And then think again -- Ireland decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, a year before most of Australia, with Tassy holding out until man-on-man rum buggery and similar acts of depravity were finally made legal in 1997 - that's only twenty years ago.
And yet, before 2012, children in Ireland had no legal entity, let alone any status, and essentially had the same rights as cattle, before the 35th amendment to the Irish Constitution was voted in, to put the rug-rats under the umbrella of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. After a round of legal challenges, it didn't become law until 2015.
So, it strikes me as rather odd that, until a couple of years ago, the unborn in Ireland had more or less the same rights as adults, but as soon as they popped out of the womb, they had absolutely nothing until they turned 18, and were legally regarded as the chattels of their parents, with which the State had no right to interfere, except under "exceptional circumstances".
The old Irish Constitutional code even went so far as to define children's rights as "indescriptible".
In this one, it was a vote to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution which was approved by voters 35 years ago -- abolishing s.40.3 (3) "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right. This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state. This subsection shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to such conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state" and replacing it with "Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy".
Back in the early '80's the Irish were clearly operating on the NIMBY principal, but feel free to do it elsewhere.
The referendum question was effectively, in a round-about way, "Do you approve of provision being made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancies?"
While the YES vote won more easily than expected at just over 66%, and the turnout was fairly healthy in a non-compulsory referendum - 2,159,655 punters showed up at the polls -- 36% of electors were no-shows, taking the "don't care" or "couldn't be bothered" position.
Let's face it, the once totally dominant and all powerful Roman Catholic Church has not been getting good press lately, having world-wide credibility and hypocrisy issues surrounding the child buggering priests protection racket, so given Ireland's track record in this grey area, the NO vote had a lot of difficulty taking the moral high ground.
Forget my personal view that the grubby hands of Govt. have no place in the sexual proclivities or reproductive rights of anyone.
As far as I'm concerned, folks can get it on in anyway they can as much as they like, and whether or not they wish, want or need to spawn issue is entirely up to them - that's beside the point.
For mine, the YES vote is still on the shifting sands of time, regardless -- all they've really done is given Govt's. the power to make provision under the law regarding the termination of pregnancies.
What happens in the unlikely event of a hard-line anti-abortion Govt. getting up via the Miracle of Democracy some-time down the track?
Work all that out, if you will, and yr better than me.
Here endeth the lesson in curious Irish Constitutional Law.
Speaking of credibility and hypocrisy, the timing of "Super Saturday" [five by-elections on the same day, never before seen in the history of Federation] was an act of utter utter political bastardry pure and simple, so so typical of Tories.
Never mind the bald-faced two-fingered "up you, Pinko's!" of it being scheduled on the same weekend as the ALP National Conference or that it defies the accepted principal and logic of never holding elections during the school holidays - people can see straight through that for what it is - just pity the poor good burghers of Braddon, Fremantle, Longman, Mayo and Perth, who have to suffer through a nine week by-election campaign.
No one is saying "Damn the High Court!", but nine weeks?!
It's just postponing the inevitable; the coalition won't even go to the time and trouble of running candidates in seats they can't win, and it won't be hard to run the ex-Xenophite, Rebekha Sharkie, out of town in the Adelaide Hills, and replace her with Alexander Downer's arch-conservative daughter Georgina - yet another bloody lawyer, and diplomat.
I know nothing of 38-year-old Georgie, save that she comes from "old Adelaide money", which is just about as perfect a credential as you can get to become a Tory MP.
Her great-grandfather, Sir John ["bull-headed, and rather thick-necked"], was twice a premier of South Australia who was also elected as a Protectionist Party candidate to the very first Australian Senate, but got jack of Melbourne and went back to Adelaide.
Her grandfather, Sir Alick, was the Minister for Wogs in a Menzies government, and finished up with the top diplomatic cherry as Australia's High Commissioner to London.
Her father, Alexander AC, was the shortest-lived Liberal opposition leader ever [8 months] but Australia's longest serving foreign minister [11 years 8 months] and most recently, just like grand-pops, was also Australia's High Commissioner to the Court of St James.
Just a shame they don't have any of the charisma of any of the people in Dynasty, none of them.
Little wonder then, that Georgina reportedly has the Downer knack of putting their foot in their mouths and rubbing people up the wrong way, and her main aim in life appears to be becoming the next "Iron Lady" -- you can see where she's from, and where she's at.
With the recent spotlight on Royalty and to paraphrase the words of the Great Gough "God Save The Queen, because nothing will save the current Prime Minister".
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