Save the 8th has welcomed the news that Dr. Peter Boylan is officially campaigning for a YES vote in the forthcoming referendum. The organisation says that it has been clear for some time that Dr. Boylan is a determined pro-choice campaigner, but that his role had been obscured to the public.

The organisation said: “For several years, Dr. Boylan has been presented as “an independent expert”. He is no such thing. Today, we see openly what has been obvious for a long number of years – Dr. Boylan is an avowed pro-choice campaigner with an ideological position on abortion.

Dr. Boylan’s medical testimony in favour of repealing the 8th has been rejected by some of the country’s leading experts. In fact, in 2013, 13 of his most senior colleagues described Dr. Boylan’s views as “a personal, not a medical, opinion”.

Despite this, Dr. Boylan has been presented as an independent expert time and time again by the media, and was even permitted to address the Citizen’s Assembly as “an independent expert”. His prominence in the debate, despite views that simply do not accord with many of his most senior colleagues, has been based on the notion that he is “independent”.

In that sense, it is welcome that today, Dr. Boylan has publicly identified himself as an openly and ideological pro-choice campaigner. His views and medical testimony should be placed in that context moving forward”.