The European Parliament has voted on an amendment stating that \u201conly biological women can get pregnant and bear children,\u201d with Irish representatives in Strasbourg appearing divided on the issue.<\/p>\n
The text was introduced as Amendment 7 to a motion for a resolution entitled \u201cMy Voice, My Choice: For Safe and Accessible Abortion\u201d. The amendment was tabled by members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group.<\/p>\n
The vote saw a notable split among Irish MEPs, with Fine Gael representatives Nina Carberry, Se\u00e1n Kelly, and Regina Doherty all casting \u201cYes\u201d votes in favor of the amendment, supporting the idea that only biological females could give birth.<\/p>\n
In contrast, their Fine Gael colleague Maria Walsh chose to abstain, joined by Independent MEP Michael McNamara.<\/p>\n
A majority of the Irish MEPs present voted against the measure, indicating that they did not support the wording that only biological females could give birth.<\/p>\n
This \u201cno\u201d camp included Billy Kelleher and Cynthia N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa of Fianna F\u00e1il; Lynn Boylan and Kathleen Funchion of Sinn F\u00e9in; and Independent Luke \u2018Ming\u2019 Flanagan.<\/p>\n
Independent Ireland\u2019s Ciar\u00e1n Mullooly voted \u2018no\u2019 \u2013 however, when contacted by Gript, his office confirmed that this was done in error and is in the process of being corrected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for bring this to our attention, this was an error on Ciar\u00e1n\u2019s part, the vote is in the processes of being corrected,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCiaran\u2019s practice has been that matters of such importance are not best dealt with via simplified amendments, with no real or meaningful debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several Irish representatives, including Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Barry Andrews and Barry Cowen, and Labour\u2019s Aodh\u00e1n \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in, did not record a vote or were not present for the session.<\/p>\n
Notably, \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in welcomed a new baby just days ago, which likely explains his absence.<\/p>\n
Explaining his decision to abstain from the vote, McNamara said that it was \u201cself-evidently true\u201d that only biological women could get pregnant, but that it was not \u201crelevant\u201d to the overall amendment.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially, the resolution concerns the right to travel to obtain abortion services and the funding of such services \u2013 so not dissimilar to a referendum in Ireland over 30 years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong the proposed amendments was one stating that only women could get pregnant. As I took the view that this statement was self-evidently true but irrelevant to a resolution that contained multiple references to women and contained no suggestion to the contrary, I abstained on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cLike proposals by radical groups, including in Ireland, calling for wordings like \u2018pregnant person\u2019, I think it was an unhelpful and unnecessary attempt to fight the \u2018culture wars\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, the motion was supported by the broader Parliament, with 320 votes in favour to 269 votes against, and 39 abstentions.<\/p>\n
The broader resolution focuses on abortion access across European Union member states.<\/p>\n
The ECR-led amendment sought to insert the specific biological definition into the text\u2019s recitals, alongside other proposals aimed at emphasising Member State sovereignty over abortion policy and critiquing the funding of abortion-related initiatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Parliament has voted on an amendment stating that \u201conly biological women can get pregnant and bear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14258,11345,104904,11450,396,61,60,104905,43,14261],"class_list":{"0":"post-197049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ben-scallan","9":"tag-birth","10":"tag-ecr","11":"tag-european-parliament","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-mep","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-transgender"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}