LifeNews.com reports that pro-lifers in Ireland held a march on Wednesday night to protest the nation’s broadcast and print media bias in favor of abortion on demand. Several thousand pro-lifers turned out in Dublin outside the Irish parliament for an event they called “33 to 1: Challenging Media Bias.”
In a recent two-week period last December, the campaigners asserted that 33 pro-abortion articles appeared in Irish national newspapers but they published only one pro-life article during the same period. The pro-lifers made a video advertising their protest:
“The decision to hold this evening’s event was not taken lightly. But media bias on abortion has reached a point where we simply cannot afford to ignore what is going on any longer,” said Pro-Life Campaign deputy chairperson Cora Sherlock.
“There has been a tendency on the part of everyone inside and outside of politics to tip-toe around the issue rather than talk about it out in the open. That’s not a healthy way to approach such a serious matter in a democracy. The public are being continually deprived of the opportunity to hear the case against abortion.”
Journalist Wendy Grace told the crowd:
“The pro-life movement in Ireland has an incredible story to tell. Stories of hope and survival against the odds. Stories of abortions being booked and then cancelled at the last minute. Stories of unplanned pregnancies that once seemed impossible leading to children that have become the love of their mothers’ lives.
“Tragically, there are many personal stories too of heartbreak and unimaginable sorrow resulting from abortion regret. Stories that if the public were given a chance to hear would turn the abortion debate on its head. But these pro-life stories of hope and heartache are being ignored and side-lined by the media. The very deliberate way in which this is being done is a scandal.”
Grace underlined the broadcast media bias at RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann, or Radio Television Ireland) is the most egregious, since it’s funded by the taxpayers.
Sherlock sounded a familiar note in discussing Ireland’s 8th Amendment, which was passed in 1983 to prevent the country from legalizing abortion as much as England, which allows abortion up to 24 weeks gestation, meaning Irish women often travel there:
“It is much easier to accuse supporters of the 8th Amendment of being sectarian, misogynistic and fundamentalist, as some newspapers did recently, than to engage in meaningful and sincere debate. This pretend debate on abortion has to be challenged and brought to an end. Our goal after tonight is to bring the message of media bias to the wider public. Through social media, outdoor advertising and one on one engagement with the general public we are going to get people talking about the slanted coverage until some degree of fairness is restored to the debate.”
