PRO-LIFE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS the Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization pledged to protect all life from conception to natural death and to accept and support without prejudice the free expression of religious practice for the people of the world; and

WHEREAS the chairman of the Democratic National Committee recently demanded “ideological purity” on the issue of abortion rights for all candidates, leaders, and members of the Democratic party with the statement: “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state”; and

WHEREAS such a policy would force Irish-American Catholics, who have long been counted among the candidates, leaders, and membership of the Democratic Party, to become estranged from their conscience and faith; now be it therefore

RESOLVED that the Ancient Order of Hibernians condemns in the strongest terms both the statement of the Democratic Party National Chairman and the implementation of such a policy by the Democratic National Committee; calls upon all political parties to respect and encourage the free expression of religious practice guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment, neither coercing nor demanding loyalty to policies that would cause estrangement from an individual’s conscience or faith; and that this resolution be delivered to the National Chairman and Committee of the Democratic Party.

Adopted in Convention and signed and witnessed this Fourteenth Day of July in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen, the two hundred and forty-second year since the founding of the American republic, and the one hundred and second since the Proclamation of the Irish republic.