On May 25, Irish citizens will vote on an historic and – quite literally – life-threatening initiative to repeal the Eight Amendment to Article 40 of the Irish Constitution. You see, in 1983, more than two-thirds of Irish voters, codifying a centuries-old legacy, approved the Eighth Amendment, which reads as follows.

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.