Yesterday saw an opinion piece published in the Irish Times written by Richard Greene from Coir. This article was marked not only by the fact that it nowhere referred to a single article in the reform treaty but it also repeated an assertion that the Lisbon Treaty would somehow affect the Irish position on abortion. Coir obviously subscribe to the “If you repeat something often enough it becomes true” school of debate. We at Generation Yes think that it is past time to put this particularly baseless untruth to bed permanently. Luckily, our friends at the European Movement Ireland had a similar idea. They write: “For the record:

The Lisbon Treaty will not bring abortion into this country.

• Since 1991 we have had a protocol in EU Treaty law clarifying our position on abortion. That’s eighteen years now. And still no piece of EU legislation that has questioned or affected this Protocol. In fact, since 1973 there has not been a piece of EU law that has sought to change our position on abortion.
• The Catholic Church has confirmed that our position on abortion is not affected by the Lisbon Treaty. During the first Lisbon Referendum, Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin said that ‘Catholics could vote for the Treaty in good conscience’.
• We are not alone. There are in fact five countries that have clear restrictive measures on abortion - Malta, Spain, Poland, Portugal and us. In fact, Malta has even stricter rules than we have.
• Just to make sure, we got an extra guarantee a couple of weeks ago from our European partners reassuring us that reasserts that our original 1991 protocol cannot be touched. “

We couldn’t have done it better ourselves! Generation Yes is committed to debating this treaty on its own merits, by referring to fact at every step of the way. This “Fight the Lies” section will continue to expose the fabrications of an unscrupulous no campaign with honest debate and clear arguments. Ireland’s position on abortion will be decided only by you, its citizens, as is firmly enshrined in both Irish and European law.