Sunday, May 27th, 2018

Ireland Votes Yes to Abortion, Shakes Off Decades of Church Rule

Author: TOM SYKES
Source: DailyBeast
Publication Date: 05.26.18 4:16 PM ET
Link: Ireland Votes Yes to Abortion, Shakes Off Decades of Church Rule

Stephan: This vote in Ireland has many implications. For one it is a rejection of the rigidity and sexuality of the patriarchal Roman Catholic Church. For another it validates a fundamental transformation in the culture of Ireland. Fundamental change is afoot in Europe about gender equality and I take this Irish vote as excellent news in that trend.

Credit: Artur Widak

Ireland, a once fiercely Catholic country, has voted by a landslide in favor of legalizing abortion in a referendum.

Final results gave a Yes vote of 66 percent, slightly less than forecast in exit polls last night. Yes won by a majority of more than 700,000 out of a total of 2,153,613 votes, winning 1,429,981 of the votes.

In some parts of Dublin, the Yes vote exceeded 75 percent, while only one county, the more rural region of Donegal, voted No, by a margin of 52-48. However the Donegal result appeared to be an anomaly rather than indicative of a rural—urban divide; all three of the remote Arran Islands voted in favor of repeal by 67-33.

Dublin Central was one of the first counts to declare, with 76.5 percent voting for Yes.

Eighty-seven percent of those aged 18-24 voted for repeal.

The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, hailed the result as “the culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or […]

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