Openly gay Irish PM Leo Varadkar to push to liberalize abortion laws
‘I’ll be campaigning for them to be changed and liberalized, yes’
Leo Varadkar, the out gay Prime Minister of Ireland, has confirmed he will campaign to liberalize abortion laws.
Varadkar has changed his stance since 2014, when he said he was ‘pro-life’.
Ireland’s ban on abortion is subject to a referendum later this year.
Until yesterday, the PM had been declined to clarify his position, leading to weeks of scrutiny.
‘I’ll be campaigning’
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today program yesterday, he said: ‘I’ll be campaigning for them to be changed and to be liberalized, yes.’
He also said: ‘We will have that referendum, hopefully in the summer. […] We should be in a position to make a decision on that in government next week.’
On Friday, The Irish Times furthermore published an opinion poll saying 56 percent of Irish people favored a repeal of the constitutional ban.
Varadkar came out in 2015. He told RTE at the time: ‘It’s not something that defines me. I’m not a half-Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter.’
He furthermore added: ‘It’s just part of who I am, it doesn’t define me, it is part of my character I suppose,’ he said.
He then became Prime Minister in 2017, the country’s first to be openly gay.
Words by Jamie Tabberer
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Originally published at www.gaystarnews.com on January 28, 2018.
