Dolores O’Riordan

Dolores O’Riordan, born on September 6, 1971, led popular Irish rock band, The Cranberries. Her work covered a broad terrain, from the complexity of family relationships to the impact of violence in Northern Ireland, especially on its children. She waxed eloquent for the pro-life position in a 1995 Rolling Stone cover story.

Said singer, songwriter, and mother O’Riordan, “It’s not good for women to go through the procedure and have something living sucked out of your bodies. It belittles women — even though some women say, ‘Oh, I don’t mind having one.’ Every time a woman has an abortion, it just crushes her self-esteem, smaller and smaller and smaller.”

In 2009, she moderated a discussion with high school girls after some Cranberries songs were used as the soundtrack of “South Dakota: A Woman’s Right to Choose,” a film about teen pregnancy and abortion that, although officially neutral, was viewed by critics as leaning more toward the life-affirming position.

Sadly, O’Riordan died suddenly on January 15, 2018, at just 46 years old. In May 2019, her mother, Eileen O’Riordan, addressed a rally in Dublin in support of the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, saying, “My daughter, Dolores…. She was completely opposed to abortion. All our family will be voting ‘no’ on the 25th of May.”

Less than two weeks later, Irish voters chose to repeal the amendment, ending Ireland’s legacy as a model for developed nations in providing health care that respects the dignity of both mother and child.