Repeal then what?
The Taoiseach will be campaigning for repeal of the Eighth. But Tánaiste Simon Coveney’s contradictory views are indicative of the confusion about what a post-repeal landscape might actually look like
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is a politician who perfectly encapsulates the seismic change in mainstream political thinking on Irish abortion law. Eight years ago, outlining his opposition to abortion in cases of rape, he remarked: “It isn’t the child’s fault that they’re the child of rape.”
Last Monday, in outlining the case for liberalisation of the law, he said: “Children get pregnant as a result of rape and in Ireland it is currently the ...