Season’s greetings to all our readers!

To round off the year, we thought we’d share a selection of blogs from 2022 that we think deserve a new lease of life!

This year, the Dobbs case in the USA saw the overturning of Roe vs Wade. Ben blogged about this when the decision was leaked, saying that 

‘One of the most common questions we get at Minimise is “how do I start a conversation about abortion in the first place?” Well, now a bunch of them will be started for you!’

It’s time to come clean: when I read this blog, I thought Ben didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t for one moment think that the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the USA would naturally arise in conversation amongst my friends and colleagues here in Ireland. Imagine my surprise when Ben was proven decisively correct: all of a sudden, abortion was being raised in everyday conversation, and not because of some dreadful tragic Irish maternity case. I was able to discuss the topic without raising it myself, including at a wedding, of all places. Ben’s post is well worth rereading, as the opportunity for conversations never goes away, we just have to learn to use them.

The stakes are high: two separate blogs by Ben and Ciara show that public opinion is not on our side, not in the USA, and definitely not in Ireland. The Minimise Project remains committed to changing people’s minds on the substantive issue of abortion via productive conversations. With this in mind, Ciara’s critique of an article on how to make conversations productive is worth a reread.

To help you with what to actually say in a conversation on abortion, this year Ben wrote our most comprehensive treatment of the Equal Rights Argument to date (credit to our friends at the Equal Rights Institute for the concept), while Ciara took a deep dive into bodily rights arguments. Any modern pro-lifers needs to know these arguments like the back of their hand. If you haven’t read these blogs recently, it’s probably time to brush up!

Our second main aim is to reduce the abortion rate in Ireland, and policies such as the Work-Life Balance Bill are a great step forward in the effort to normalise pregnancy and parenthood. Pro-lifers should prioritise the implementation of this bill, and other work-life balance initiatives, in 2023.

On a more sober note, January 2022 saw the emergence of a national conversation on violence against women, prompted by the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy. Blánaid outlines in this post why pro-life advocates must play an active role in the effort to end violence against women, and blogged about inconvenient women for International Women’s Day.

Finally, 2022 saw the launch of a new series of posts on the blog, where we review books that people who are engaged on the issue of abortion might find interesting. The first in the series was a review of Flatland. It’s quite a short novella – if you’re looking for some post-Christmas reading, you might like to give it a try!

What were your favourite pro-life blogs of 2022? Let us know!

Muireann