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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— village gender special December 2009 - January 2010
:
Women still travel abroad for abortions but it is unclear if abortions to save
women’s lives are ever carried out in Ireland
i v a n a b a c i k , l a b o u r s e n a t o r f o r t r i n i t y c o l l e g e
Abortion
PHOTO: PHOTOCALL IRELAND
Anti-abortion march, Dublin 1992
“The legal case centres on the
women’s argument that their
human rights were breached
because they were forced to
travel abroad for abortions”
in Britain in .
Since then, thousands of women have trav-
elled from Ireland to clinics in London and
Liverpool to obtain abortions denied to them
at home. Irish law on abortion is the most
restrictive in Europe. Abortion is a criminal
offence under legislation, carrying a
maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
In , our Constitution was amended
to make the right to life of ‘the unborn’ equal
to that of ‘the mother’. This made our law
even more restrictive; a pregnancy may only
be terminated legally in order to save the life
of the pregnant woman. There is no right to
abortion in any other circumstance; even
where a woman or girl has been raped or
abused, or is carrying a non-viable foetus.
Despite this highly repressive law,
abortion is a reality in Ireland. More than
, Irish women and girls have had
abortions over the last forty years. Yet these
women’s stories are never told publicly in
Ireland. The cultural taboo on speaking out
about abortion and crisis pregnancy has been
strengthened by the intimidatory tactics of
the anti-choice campaigners. Abortion rep-
resents their last line of defence, since con-
traception and divorce were legalised in the
s. These conservative lobbyists have
brought disproportionate influence to bear
on fearful politicians.
Following the Amendment, anti-
abortion groups took a series of court cases
which had the effect of closing down wom-
en’s counselling centres, depriving women of
the right to receive information on where to
obtain abortion abroad. Across Ireland, stu-
dents’ unions became the only organisations
willing to publicly provide information about
how to access abortion in Britain.
As President of Trinity Students’ Union in
-, I carried out Union policy by giving
information on abortion to women with cri-
sis pregnancies. As a result I and others were
threatened with prison by SPUC (the Society
for the Protection of the Unborn Child) in a
marathon court case. Mary Robinson (later
elected President of Ireland) stepped in to
defend us, and we were not sent to prison, but
we lost our case initially and were threatened
with bankruptcy.
Since our case was taken, some change
has occurred as a result of the X case.
This arose when a year-old pregnant rape
victim, known only as X, tried to travel to
England with her parents to terminate her
pregnancy. The State tried to prevent her
travelling abroad in order to stop her hav-
ing the abortion. People were understand-
ably horrified at this inhumane response
to the girl’s crisis. Following the public out-
cry that followed, the Supreme Court ruled
that because X was suicidal, the pregnancy
posed a real and substantial risk to her life, so
her pregnancy could lawfully be terminated
under the amendment.
As a result of the X case, two further
amendments to the Constitution were passed
in November . The first allowed the
freedom of information,
and enabled us, finally,
to win our long-running
legal case. The second
referendum allowed the
right to travel for women
seeking abortions. The
Government also pro-
posed a third referen-
dum, seeking to overturn
the X case by ruling out
suicide risk as a ground
for abortion, but thank-
fully this was defeated.
In , follow-
ing more pressure from
anti-abortion groups,
the Government sought
to pass yet another refer-
endum to try and rule out
suicide risk as a ground
for abortion – but again
this was defeated after
a strong campaign by the Labour Party and
pro-choice groups.
Since then, the law has remained stag-
nant. Women continue to travel to Britain
in their thousands, and no statistics exist
on whether abortions are ever carried out
in Ireland to save women’s lives. To try and
bring about change, activists in Ireland have
established the Safe and Legal (in Ireland)
abortion rights campaign (SLI), which is sup-
porting an important case currently being
taken by three women, A, B and C, against
Ireland before the European Court of Human
Rights. The legal case centres on the wom-
en’s argument that their human rights were
breached because they were forced to travel
abroad for abortions. This is the first direct
challenge to Irish abortion law before the
European court, and it could bring about rad-
ical legal change. The case was heard before
the Strasbourg Court this month, and a judg-
ment is awaited.
The SLI campaign is also working towards
the legalisation of abortion generally. Opinion
polls show that support for legal abortion
has increased significantly in recent years.
As Irish society has changed and liberalised,
most people have become more accepting of
the need to legalise abortion.
The only thing that has not changed is
the lack of courage and leadership demon-
strated by successive Governments on abor-
tion. Indeed, the Supreme Court has been
highly critical of the failure to pass laws reg-
ulating reproductive health. Eighteen years
ago, judges called for legislators to clarify
the law on abortion in the X case. Just this
month, in a case taken by a woman seeking to
implant her frozen embryos, Judge Fennelly
commented similarly that the ongoing failure
to legislate on assisted human reproduction
issues was ‘disturbing’.
This cowardice by legislators is due to a
fear of appearing controversial; a fear of stir-
ring up the anger of the once-powerful anti-
abortion movement. But I believe that times
have changed and the conservative lobby are
losing ground. Now is the time to challenge
the culture of silence and hypocrisy. We must
press the Government to confront the real-
ity of crisis pregnancy, and to meet the real
health needs of women by legalising abor-
tion in Ireland.
PHOTO: PHOTOCALL IRELAND
