Killing is not medicine and doctors will not be bullied into aborting unborn babies, an Irish OB-GYN said Saturday in Dublin.
Dr. Trevor Hayes, an obstetrician at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny, spoke at the All-Ireland Rally for Life where about 10,000 pro-lifers peacefully marched in support of life, Kilkenny Now reports.
“Abortion is not life-saving. It’s life-ending. It’s not health care, and no amount of spin can make it health care,” Hayes told the crowd.
Ireland’s new abortion law, which was rammed through parliament in December, allows abortions for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and up to six months in a wide variety of circumstances. It also forces taxpayers to pay for abortions and forces Catholic hospitals to provide them. The new law strictly limits conscience protections for medical professionals, and hundreds of doctors and nurses fear being forced to help abort unborn babies or lose their jobs.
In June, Hayes and three other OB-GYNs at St. Luke’s took a stand against the government. In a letter to general practitioners in their area, they said they “decided unanimously” not to perform abortions at their hospital.
Hayes said pro-abortion political leaders will create a major health crisis if they bully medical professionals into performing abortions, because many will quit rather than kill an unborn child, according to the report.
“If this means that doctors and nurses and other medical professionals are being forced out of medicine, this will only add to the staffing crisis already crippling the health service,” he said Saturday.
He criticized Minister for Health Simon Harris, one of the key activists who pushed Ireland to legalize abortion.
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“He is obsessing with abortion,” Hayes said. “It’s a procedure that helps no one and takes the life of a child. Instead he is trying to bully good men and women to get involved in abortion against their conscience.”
Later, he continued: “But that outcome will be caused, not by pro-life doctors and nurses, but by Simon Harris and this government. Shame on them for failing to respect the conscientious right of medical professionals.”
Hayes said the goal of a medical professional is to save lives.
The rally on Saturday brought renewed hope for Ireland with about 10,000 people publicly calling for the rights of unborn babies to be restored.
Last year, abortion activists, backed by some of the world’s richest men, succeeded in convincing Irish voters to repeal the Eighth Amendment and allow abortion on demand. After the May vote, parliament quickly rammed through the radical pro-abortion law amid numerous complaints from medical professionals.
Leaders of Irish hospitals said they did not have the equipment or training to begin abortions so soon and women’s lives could be put at risk. Others said they may not be able to comply with the law because so many of their staff object to abortions.
This spring, pro-life advocates said pro-abortion political leaders are prioritizing spending on abortion over maternity care, and two pregnant women recently died in Irish maternity hospitals.
“The government is taking money away from a vitally important strategy to ensure women do not die in pregnancy – and giving it to funding abortion. There is no clearer way of showing that their priorities do not lie with protecting women, but simply with ending the lives of preborn babies,” Niamh Uí Bhriain of The Life Institute wrote in April.
It is not clear how many unborn babies have died since abortions became legal in January in Ireland.
