Abortion? confused? The shifting sands of Libertas and Ganley on Abortion!

Abortion Confused? – Libertas and Ganley want you to be.

During last year’s Referendum campaign a Libertas leaflet said "The European Court can decide what a human right is. And they can decide whether Abortion is a ‘service’ falling under the ‘free movement of services directive’ That sound like a guarantee to you? "

Ganley tried to reverse that position on TV3 on Sunday 18 May, 2008. He told Ursula Halligan on Ireland's TV3 that Libertas had no position in relation to abortion. When the Halligan showed him a quote attributed to him in relation to this issue in the Mayo Advertiser which was highly provocative he simply denied Libertas had a position on the issue.

On 3 June, 2008 the Irish Independent reported Libertas spokesperson Caroline Simons as saying, truthfully, that the Lisbon Treaty would not give the European Union influence over abortion laws in this country. She elaborated: "In relation to the abortion issue, there is, as you know, since the Maastricht Treaty, a protocol reserving to Ireland the full rights to interpret Article 40.3.3 and keeping that outside the ambit and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice."

Libertas spokesperson Caroline Simons is legal advisor to Ireland's Pro Life Campaign

Simmons is right the Protocol which has the same binding effect as the Treaty itself reads “Nothing in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe or in the Treaties or Acts modifying or supplementing it shall affect the application in Ireland of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland.”

Now Ganley is reversing his position again, again spreading confusion and trying to deceive people.

The Irish Times today reports him as telling a conference in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, at the weekend which was organised by the Catholic John Paul II Society and co-hosted by the pro-life Human Life International group that any guarantees given by the EU on social and ethical issues “were not worth the paper they are written on”, where the European Court of Justice was concerned and that: “the laws of the union have primacy over the laws of any member state . . . If there is a conflict, union law rules.”

Ignoring for the moment that Ganley is criticising something that he hasn’t seen and that hasn’t yet been finalised, his suggestion that ‘the laws of the union have primacy over the laws of any member state‘ is untrue in the matter of abortion.

The fact that this line is untrue was recognised by MR JUSTICE IARFHLAITH O’NEILL. Chairman of the Referendum Commission who told a Press Briefing, on Wednesday 4th June 2008

“In regard to abortion, Protocol No. 35 to the Treaty of Lisbon on Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland states that nothing in the Treaties or in the Treaties or Acts modifying or supplementing those Treaties, shall affect the application in Ireland of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland.

Protocols have full legal force – they have the same legal status as an Article of the Treaties. This Protocol is EU law and it explicitly excludes Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution from any other EU law.

This means Ireland’s constitutional position on abortion would not be affected by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.”

If Ganley won’t listen to the opinion of a High Court Judge who has studied the issue in detail, perhaps he would listen to the in house Libertas legal expert. The reality is of course that he is less interested in facts – his real aim is confusion.