A CAMPAIGN HAS been launched by artists calling for the repeal of the 8th amendment.
Cillian Murphy, Marian Keyes, John Banville, Edna O’Brien, Christy Moore, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Neil Jordan are among the more than 240 artists who have joined the campaign by the signing this statement.
The amendment was introduced in 1983 and it acknowledges the right to life of the unborn, equating it with the mother’s right to life.
Speaking at the social media launch of the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Alice Maher said:
We are calling on our politicians to do their job and to legislate for the people who elected them and for the people who will go out to vote at the next election and to be very clear and make no mistake about it, we will be voting for those who have the courage to right this wrong.
The campaign was set up by a group of artists earlier this year and they say that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
It is calling on all artists working in architecture, dance, music, literature, theatre, film, television and visual arts to input their names.
The artists involved say they hope their campaign will become broader. “We hope that other sectors of Irish society will also call for the repeal of this detrimental Amendment.”
In a statement the artists say, “The eighth amendment undermines the status of the Irish constitution. It is a key source of Ireland’s failure to reach international human rights standards and of the state’s failure to meet its obligations to vindicate women’s human rights.”
A poll commissioned by Amnesty International has shown 81% of people in Ireland are in favour of widening the grounds for legal abortion access.
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