Broke Party Ranks On Abortion
Doyle achieved early party notoriety when in 1983 he was one of eight Fine Gael TDs to defy the party and vote against the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition's proposed wording to the Pro-life constitutional amendment on abortion. Whereas the government's wording included a negative prohibition, namely that nothing in the constitution should be interpreted as granting a right to abortion, Doyle, along with Alice Glenn and other colleagues endorsed the Fianna Fáil alternative wording that granted a "right to life to the unborn, with due regard to the equal right of the mother". Because of the controversial nature of the issue, and the fact that Fine Gael itself was split on the issue, he was not sacked from the party for breaking the party whip.
Read more about this topic: Joe Doyle
Famous quotes containing the words broke, party, ranks and/or abortion:
“He had killed and put to earth so many that his sword broke in two. At length he thought to himself that that was enough massacring and killing for one day, and that the rest should be allowed to escape in order to spread the news.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“... abortion opponents love little babies as long as they are in somebody else’s uterus.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)