After Bringing Abortion on Demand to Ireland, Thankfully Leo Varadkar is Finally Resigning
The controversial English politician Enoch Powell famously said that all political careers end in failure. For Leo Varadkar, his shock resignation as Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) on 20th March seemed to endorse Powell’s rule.
For pro-life Irish citizens, the legacy of Mr Varadkar will be his leading role in repealing the life-saving Eighth Amendment from our constitution which kept abortion out of Ireland for decades. The image of Mr Varadkar and other senior politicians celebrating in jubilation at Dublin Castle in the aftermath of the 2018 abortion referendum result is still burned in our collective mind.
Mr Varadkar was a political animal from a young age, contesting his first election at the age of 20 when he stood for a local council seat whilst still a student at Trinity College Dublin. He first won election to the Irish parliament in 2007. His party, Fine Gael, won a resounding victory in the 2011 general election following the financial crash which toppled the outgoing Fianna Fáil-led government. In the resulting Fine Gael-Labour government, Mr Varadkar became a cabinet minister and showed himself as someone with considerable talent.
In his early political career, Mr Varadkar was publicly pro-life. In line with the mood of the public, he opposed the idea of introducing abortion legislation even though his government colleagues in the Labour Party were committed in their manifesto to legislating for the X Case. But like many political chameleons, Mr Varadkar went on a “journey” during the course of the 2011-16 government and voted in favour of the 2013 abortion law.
When Fine Gael lost seats in the 2016 general election, and its Labour Party government colleagues were decimated electorally, the outgoing Taoiseach Enda Kenny returned to lead a minority Fine Gael government which involved independents and was externally supported by Fianna Fáil. Mr Kenny’s resignation in 2017 opened the path for Mr Varadkar to assume the leadership of his party. In the party’s internal leadership election, the vast majority of party members backed his opponent Simon Coveney’s bid for the leadership, however, a majority of the parliamentary party supported Mr Varadkar and thus allowed him to win outright. He therefore became Taoiseach without having led his party into a general election.
His fledgling premiership was portrayed internationally and domestically in the media as a “progressive” step forward for Ireland. Mr Varadkar soon signalled his intention to hold a referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment and introducing abortion legislation. Before the referendum, his government published a draft scheme for a bill if the people voted Yes, including abortion on demand up to 12 weeks and beyond that for vague mental health reasons. In May 2018, the referendum passed by a 2:1 margin and Mr Varadkar’s government spared no time in pushing the eventual abortion law through parliament.
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Under Mr Varadkar’s watch, the abortion rate has exploded in Ireland. In 2018, the last year before Ireland introduced its current abortion law, there were 2,911 Irish abortions recorded in Britain. However, in 2023, it has been revealed in a parliamentary question that there have likely been over 10,000 abortions in Ireland. Although Mr Varadkar said in June 2023 that he would like to see fewer abortions and expressed concern about the skyrocketing abortion rate, the fact remains that he has farmed out policymaking on abortion to extremists. Talk is cheap. The consequences of his actions have been disastrous, and now Ireland is in a situation where a government-backed report has recommended radically expanding the country’s abortion law to make it even more pervasive. This report was drafted with the input of the extreme wing of the pro-abortion movement, whilst any criticisms of the toll of the abortion regime were sidelined.
Mr Varadkar’s resignation on 20th March, three months before the country faces local and European elections on 7th June, came as a surprise to many. There has been considerable speculation that his government’s resounding defeat in two referendums on 8th March prompted the Taoiseach’s bombshell resignation. These referendums unsuccessfully attempted to alter the constitution from providing that marriage was the foundation of a family to also include so-called ‘durable relationships; whilst another referendum attempted to remove a reference that mothers would not be forced out of the home due to economic necessity with a vague recognition of the contribution of carers.
The referendum results certainly proved that the chorus of Non-Governmental Organisations such as the National Women’s Council who heavily endorsed a Yes vote are not remotely reflective of the views of the public. The same is obviously true in the case of abortion, where the government has appointed fringe groups like the National Women’s Council to act as the spokespeople for all women, who have then misused their platform to advocate for extreme proposals like the removal of all gestational limits from the abortion law.
Many pro-lifers in Ireland and internationally will be glad to see the back of Mr Varadkar. However, as a country we may simply be thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire. The likely successor as leader of Fine Gael and ergo as prime minister is Simon Harris, who was the minister for health during the abortion referendum. Mr Harris, elected in 2011, made very strong commitments that if elected he would act and vote as a pro-life parliamentarian – he broke his promise two years later by supporting the 2013 abortion law. Infamously, in 2018, he was a major campaigner for a Yes vote and steered the new abortion legislation onto the statute books.
If Mr Harris becomes Taoiseach in April, he should be reminded of a promise he made in 2018 during the drafting of the 2018 legislation: “Absolutely, termination of pregnancy services in Ireland is not going to be done by telemedicine”. Under his watch, in 2020, telemedicine abortion was introduced as a Covid-19 response. This was a profoundly dangerous decision, and even the Health Service Executive has acknowledged that in-person consultations increase the likelihood of detecting victims of domestic abuse and coercion. As all other Covid-19 measures have long ago been lifted, Mr Harris should be asked whether as leader he will honour his “absolute” promise that abortion in Ireland would not be conducted via telemedicine.
Because promises matter in politics, whoever succeeds Mr Varadkar as leader of Ireland must be held to account. They need to face up to the reality that Ireland has seen a massive upsurge in its abortion rate since the new abortion law came into effect in 2019. Ireland needs politicians who cherish and protect human life, and unfortunately Mr Varadkar failed in this historic duty.
LifeNews Note: Eilís Mulroy is the CEO and Spokesperson for Pro Life Campaign Ireland
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