The Irish Taliban are threatening PM Enda Kenny for expanding women’s rights
by David Atkins
Fundamentalist activists in Ireland are are threatening PM Enda Kenny over his efforts to lift Ireland’s total abortion ban, including with letters written in blood:
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny says anti-abortion activists in his predominantly Roman Catholic country are inundating his office with threatening packages and letters condemning him as a baby-killer, some written in blood.
“I am now being branded … around the country as a murderer, that I’m going to have on my soul the death of 20 million babies,” Kenny said Wednesday as he described a mass campaign to flood his post box and telephone switchboard with anti-abortion messages.
But Kenny told lawmakers his 2-year-old government was determined to reform Ireland’s blanket ban on abortion in a bill being published Wednesday night following months of backroom haggling.
The proposed law would strengthen the ability of doctors to perform abortions only in rare cases where the woman’s life was endangered from continued pregnancy, including her own threat to commit suicide if denied a termination.
An opinion poll being published Thursday in The Irish Times found strong public support for wider abortion rights than that proposed in the bill. But it recorded substantial opposition to suicide threats as justifiable grounds.
The bill is a small step in the right direction, yet it has the fundamentalists up in arms over the threat to patriarchy and a bizarre interpretation of their religion not even supported by a close reading of their own sacred texts.
It doesn’t matter if it’s here, Ireland, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. It’s always the same impulse, and it always deserves the same scorn and crushing defeat in the cause of a more equitable world.
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