Catholic secondary school students were shown anti-abortion video that caused some girls to cry

Needless to say, several parents made official complaints.

When a pro-life anti-abortion video was shown to students at Ursuline Secondary School in Thurles, the contents of the video was so upsetting it made several of the girls who watched it cry. According to the Sunday Independent, the video, which was shown to a group of sixth-year students at the Tipperary school, was of a graphic nature and made a number of controversial and inaccurate claims in regards to abortion, health and medical research. The video, which was produced by the Life Network in Dallas, Texas, was shown to the Thurles students in December 2019. The video, which was seen by journalists from the Sunday Independent, contains several controversial claims, including that abortion clinics harvest foetal organs to sell them to medical researchers to fight Parkinson’s, and that women who have abortions are at high risk of developing breast cancer. The video also apparently bizarrely claimed that the “scalp of the aborted baby can be used to correct baldness." Needless to say, the contents and information in the video was so graphic it upset the students and, according to the Sunday Independent, made several of the girls cry. Following the showing of the video, a mother of one of the students at Ursuline Secondary School made a complaint which in turn lead to a prolonged process of investigation. Several other parents made complaints to the Teaching Council too. The investigation ended in June of this year, with the Teaching Council's final ruling stating that the showing of the video did not warrant a full disciplinary inquiry.