Dr. Peter Boylan Must Resign

Together for Yes campaigner Dr. Peter Boylan has “misled shamelessly” in a new Hot Press interview, and should resign immediately as Chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Stand Up To Lies

We are very reluctant, in what has been a civil campaign to date, to have to declare someone of Dr. Boylan’s stature to be, effectively, a liar. But in this case, the facts simply do not add up to any other adjective to describe his statements. The gravity of these lies mean that he should resign, effective immediately, as Chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

In a Hot Press interview, he declares that “four women have died” because of the 8th amendment.

He names Miss Sheila Hodgers, and says she died because of the 8th amendment.

Miss Hodgers tragically lost her life on March 19th, 1983. The 8th amendment was not adopted until six months after her death. To claim that she died because of a law that did not exist at the time is therefore the most textbook example of a lie uttered by either side in this campaign.

He names Miss P, and says she died because of the 8th amendment.

Miss P died as a result of severe brain trauma unrelated to her pregnancy. Her pregnancy had no impact on her death, nor did any law preventing her from accessing an abortion. An abortion could not, and would not, have saved her life, because she was, tragically, brain dead. While doctors tried to keep her alive to save her unborn child, this was not successful. While the case of Miss P was newsworthy because of the decision to prolong her life, to say that she died because of the 8th amendment is an outrageous and sickening lie.

He names Savita Halappanaver.

No fewer than three enquiries into Savita’s death found that she had died as a result of mis-managed sepsis.

He names Michelle Harte.

Michelle Harte actually had an abortion, as a result of a private insurance company denying pregnant women access to a drug trial. She tragically died anyway.

Dr. Boylan, by assigning blame to the 8th amendment in the cases of Sheila Hodgers and Miss P, particularly is bringing himself and his campaign into disrepute. This is the mark of an increasingly desperate YES campaign that will stop at nothing to trash Irish medicine, and Irish doctors, in order to get its way.

Dr. Boylan also makes a bizarre and outrageous claim about the abortion figures in the UK - he claims our one in five stat is "a lie", and then proceeds to say the real figure is one in ten if miscarriages are included. This is, frankly, a flat out lie. It is a whopper. It is an attempt to fool people. No statistician has ever come close to the figure he suggests, and no international measure of the abortion ratio has ever included miscarriages because to do so would be to assume that women who miscarry would access abortion at a lower rate than the rest of the population.

Dr. Boylan is attempting to take the public, and the media, for fools. He hopes that journalists invested in a YES vote will completely disregard what are blatant lies.

We anticipate that the media will fulfil its fact-checking duties in relation to these statements, and hold Dr. Boylan to account for what are blatant untruths. It is time for these media fact-checkers to do their work.

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