By Dave Andrusko

On Thursday we wrote about how pro-lifers in the Republic of Ireland have stepped up their ground game and their social media outreach as they near the day when the Irish Parliament will decide when the referendum will take place on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment which affords equal rights to unborn children and their mother. Likely the referendum will be in May or June but it could be put off until later in the fall.

Today the pro-abortion-to-the-hilt Irish Times published the results of an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll which no doubt had the entire staff cheering.

At this point in time—meaning Monday and Tuesday of this week—“among a representative sample of 1,200 voters aged 18 and over” —  we are told a solid majority “back[s] the repeal of the Eighth Amendment and support the introduction of abortion on request up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy,” according to the Irish Times’ Pat Leahy.

There is an awful lot to unpack in that paragraph.

Leahy, who as best I can tell does virtually all of the reporting on abortion polling, makes a number of arguments and concessions.

As you would expect, it is not until very near the end of his story that he fleshes out a comment made earlier—“If there’s one thing we have learned from referendum campaigns in the past it’s that the position you start from is not necessarily the position you’ll finish with.”

Here is the second part of a two-part question that respondents were asked:

Will you vote to change the Constitution so that the Government can legislate for abortion up to 12 weeks, or will you vote not to change the Constitution?”

56% said yes, 29% said no.

If you believe Leahy, pro-abortion forces have “out organized” and “out-thought” the “broader anti-abortion campaign.”

Let’s be clear. Pro-lifers are organizing and they aren’t being “out-thought.” But they are facing a formidable combination of billionaires supporting the repeal movement, Amnesty International haranguing them, the UN Human Rights Committee announcing Ireland’s abortion laws are an abridgement of human rights, and virtually the entirety of the secular media in Ireland actively campaigning to gut the Eighth Amendment.

It makes David and Goliath look like an exercise in parity.

Leahy does acknowledge

Anti-abortion campaigners say there are reasons for this [the 56%]. They cite a widespread media bias (though that will become less important once broadcast requirements for balanced coverage come into operation during the campaign). They say people are only switching onto the issue now.

And that is key. To date, all most people have heard is a steady drumbeat of the need for “change,” beginning with a stacked “Citizens Assembly” whose recommendations were the blueprint for the Parliamentary Committee on the Eighth Amendment. (Pro-lifers were also largely excluded from that as well.)

“Today’s poll results are largely in keeping with other recent polls on the issue,” said Cora Sherlock spokesperson for the ProLife Campaign.  “The public debate for the past month or more has largely featured members of the Government talking about the process and explaining how it is going to take shape. The debate proper has not started and the case for keeping the 8th Amendment certainly has not received the airing it deserved. When this happens, I am confident that the polls will move in a pro-life direction.”

As voters do take a greater interest, there will be many calls for “civility”—and who is against being civil? But translated that means pro-lifers shouldn’t talk about what happens in an abortion and, of course, not show pictures of the aborted victim.

Pro-lifers are already being ridiculed for pointing out what the secular media refuses to acknowledge. There is language in the Parliamentary Committee on the Eighth Amendment’s 40-page report that opens the door to abortions much later in pregnancy and for many reasons including “foetal disability,” code for babies with Down syndrome.

Final point, and it is very important . As Leahy reads the numbers, there is a “third or so” of the voters who are “soft”—they don’t have their minds made up firmly. As is so often the case, what we call here the “mushy middle” will play an outsized, indeed, decisive role.