SEVERAL students' unions in Britain have arranged to pay airline tickets home for their Irish students that they can vote in tomorrow's referendum on the Eighth Amendment.
On Friday morning (May 25), polling stations will open all over the country and the Irish public will be asked to vote on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution.
The Eighth Amendment supports the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother.
The National Union of Students in Britain has been campaigning to get out the "Yes" vote and started the #HometoV8te campaign, which has since been adopted as the two elite universities, Oxford and Cambridge, as well as several other blue riband universities - including the University of Nottingham.
We stand in solidarity with pregnant people in Ireland and urge students’ unions across the UK to support the #HomeToV8te campaign to enable Irish students studying in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to travel home to vote in the referendumhttps://t.co/Am9IOxWRqQ pic.twitter.com/OS9avmzpRy
— NUS UK (@nusuk) May 23, 2018
Under the NUS scheme, Irish students in Britain may be eligible to receive a bursary totally £110 to fund a trip home to vote. The national body pays half of the ticket topped up by their local branches.
The University of Oxford was the first to support the movement, offering to match the maximum amount of £55 to be matched by the NUS.
The NUS has said that they “support the right to choose”.
They added: “This right is currently denied to pregnant people in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, who travel in their thousands to access abortion in the UK every year.
“We are working with our colleagues at the Union of Students in Ireland and want to ensure that all Irish citizen students studying at UK institutions who are registered to vote are able to return home to vote in the referendum.”
Tears poured silently down my face at Oxfords Student Council yst. A small number of Irish students sat in the middle of the room as our motion to fund Irish students to go #HomeToVote was debated & passed.
I'm exhausted, grateful, emotional & proud. Onwards we go.#Repeal8th pic.twitter.com/OVJ2P6tL6A— Dr. Jennifer Cassidy (@OxfordDiplomat) May 10, 2018
