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Patient advocate resigns after most of Ireland’s ring-fenced maternity care funds spent on abortion

Ireland’s Health and Security Executive has diverted money ‘ring-fenced’ for maternity care to pay for abortions, prompting a patient advocate to resign.

Launched by Mr Varadkar when he was Minister for Health, in 2016, the Government’s 10-year National Maternity Plan promised €8 million a year would be spent on developing quality, safe, consistent and well-resourced care in Ireland’s 19 maternity units.

However, the Irish Times reports that only a small fraction of the funds set aside went towards maternal care after the new Minister for Health, Simon Harris, used most of the fund to pay for Ireland’s new abortion regime.

The move prompted one of the two patient advocates on the board of the country’s Health Service Executive to resign.

Mark Molloy told the Irish Times he resigned because the HSE could only fund 12% of the €8 million a year promised for the National Maternity Strategy.

Mark’s son was one of a number of babies who died unnecessarily as a result of failings at Portlaoise hospital. Since then, the quantity surveyor has campaigned for greater accountability and patient representation in the health service.

Simon Harris and HSE chairman Ciarán Devane both tried to persuade Mark to stay on the board, but he stuck with his convictions and his decision to resign.

The lack of funding for maternal health care can have deadly consequences.

Last year, Marie Downey, who had just given birth to her baby son Darragh, died after suffering a severe epileptic seizure in Cork University Maternity hospital. Baby Darragh, who also died after being trapped on the floor when his mother fell, was buried in her arms. It was revealed just three nurses were on duty on the ward that night, caring for 31 patients.

Prior to that tragedy, another mother, Karen McEvoy died of sepsis on Christmas Day after giving birth to a baby girl in the Coombe maternity hospital.

Despite these failings of the HSE, Simon Harris, has taken money away from the strategy group tasked with ensuring women do not die around pregnancy and childbirth – in order to fund abortion.

A spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson said:

“Now that abortion is legal, it appears the safety of women who are pregnant or have just given birth is no longer the priority of Ireland’s Minister for Health or the country’s Health Service Executive.

“There’s a tragic irony in the Government’s decision to take money away from good maternal care and giving it abortion. This has potentially risked the lives of many women and the extra funding for abortion has definitely ended the lives of babies.”

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Dear reader,

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like you across the UK, the McArthur assisted suicide Bill in Scotland was defeated in March by 69 votes to 57.

Then, in April, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill fell in the House of Lords.

Many commentators thought both Bills would become law.

If that had happened, governments in England, Scotland and Wales would now be preparing to roll out assisted suicide services.

Over the coming decades, this would have led to the deaths of many thousands of vulnerable people.

But that is not what happened.

Because supporters like you acted, those Bills were stopped.

Because of you, many vulnerable lives have been saved.

These were two very significant victories. But sadly, they are not the last battles we face this year.

The new Parliamentary session began on Wednesday. We now face three major threats.

  1. Attempts to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords

    The assisted suicide lobby, led by Dignity in Dying, a multi-million-pound pressure group, has made it clear that it is going to attempt to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the next parliamentary session.

    It then plans to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords and force the Bill into law.

  2. Labour Government plans for a major expansion of abortion provision, including financial incentives for ‘lunch-hour’ abortions

    Under these plans, the Government would financially incentivise major abortion providers, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, to provide ‘lunch-hour’ or ‘same-day’ abortions.

    ‘Lunch-hour’ abortion services are walk-in abortion services designed to fit into a woman’s lunch hour.

    Women facing an unplanned pregnancy need time, care and support, not a system that gives abortion clinics a financial incentive to rush them through consultations, scans and abortions on the same day.

    If these plans go ahead, many more lives are likely to be ended by abortion here in the UK.

  3. Extreme abortion up to birth proposals in Scotland

    In Scotland, plans are moving forward to introduce an extreme abortion up to birth law. This would go far beyond the abortion law change recently backed by the Lords for England and Wales.

    A review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, recommended that the Scottish Government scrap the current 24-week time limit – and abortion be available on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth.

    The final plans are expected to be brought forward as a Government Bill in the new Scottish Parliament, which began on Thursday.

If these three major threats succeed, thousands of vulnerable lives will be lost.

We cannot allow this to happen.

We can only defeat these three major threats with your help.

We ran our biggest campaigns ever to help defeat the assisted suicide Bills at Westminster and in Scotland.

That work has made a serious dent in our limited resources.

To cover this gap and ensure we can effectively defeat these three major threats in the coming months, we are aiming to raise at least £199,250 by midnight this Sunday (17 May 2026).

We are, therefore, appealing to you to please give as generously as you can.

Every donation, large or small, will make a crucial difference in saving the lives of the unborn and many others. Plus, if you are a UK taxpayer, £1 becomes £1.25 with Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.

By stopping these threats, YOU can save lives during this new Parliamentary session.

Will you donate now to help protect vulnerable lives from these three major threats?

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
to SAVE
lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help stop three major anti-life threats.