Plain truths are rarely obvious for everyone. It’s often a long, hard slog from ignorance to knowledge. To pretend otherwise is to indulge in the realm of fantasy.
When Barack Obama came out to support marriage equality in 2012, for instance, it was after years of tiptoeing around the issue. Yet, when it came, it was presented simply as an obvious conclusion.
We now have a referendum on the eighth amendment – which for years our own politicians have tiptoed around. But if referendums are ways to address questions that have long been evaded, Irish politicians must also acknowledge that the truths they’ve discovered in recent weeks were previously far from self-evident to them.
On the day he announced a referendum on the eighth amendment – and his own support for repeal – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tweeted: “We should remember the saddest & loneliest journey is made by Irish women who travel to other countries in their 1000s to end their pregnancies. These journeys don’t have to happen”.
And yet, for a long time, this wasn’t so obvious to Varadkar. It was only a few years ago that he said: “I consider myself to be pro-life in that I accept that the unborn child is a human life with rights. I cannot, therefore, accept the view that it is a simple matter of choice”.
This isn’t to accuse him of flip-flopping, which is often an unkind way of saying a politician changed their mind. But it’s important to realise that, over the course of the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment, these kinds of journeys will be taken by many.
Varadkar’s tweets reveal an attitude that can be dangerous. For while his position is laudable, it’s easy to see how it could alienate, rather than convince. In the words of Edward Luce, “there is a line between convincing people of the merits of a case and suggesting they are moral outcasts if they fail to see it”.
As we push towards the repeal of the eighth amendment, we must avoid patronising our opponents. The repeal of the eighth amendment is obvious, clear and overdue. But let’s assuage doubts, not ignite outrage.
