Ireland Defeats Restrictive Abortion Ban

By Kirsten Mullin
Kirsten Mullin is a senior majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics at Haverford College. 

In a landslide victory for women’s reproductive rights, the Republic of Ireland voted in a country-wide referendum on May 26th, 2018 to overturn the country’s restrictive abortion ban.  Before the vote, Irish abortion law - legislated in the 8th amendment to the constitution and the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act - was among the most restrictive in the world.  The law allowed for abortion only in cases where there was a clear threat to the life of the mother and barred even cases of incest or rape [1]. The Irish electorate’s decision to repeal country’s the abortion ban leaves Malta as the only country in Europe where women are unable to access safe and legal abortions within the country’s borders [2].
 
Throughout its history, the Republic of Ireland has been viewed as a conservative state rooted in the values of the Catholic Church.  However, the influence of the church has been waning in recent years largely as a result of a string of highly publicized sex scandals.  Accompanying the decline in influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland has been a string of legislative reforms reflecting an increasingly liberal society; contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage and now abortion have all been legalized in the past 30 years [3].

The Church was instrumental in the implementation of the abortion ban in 1983.  This is reflected in the results of the 1983 referendum to include to the abortion ban in the constitution of Ireland.   Irish law requires a referendum to make changes to the country’s constitution and in 1983 the electorate voted - 67% to 33% to include a ban on abortion in constitution of Ireland [4]. The amendment reads:
 
The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate this right [5].
 
A series of court cases in the following years clarified the vague language in the amendment and set the precedent for the legality of special cases regarding abortion, particularly those where the mother’s life is in danger.  The most prominent of these cases is most commonly referred to as the “X Case.”  In 1992, a 14 year old girl, referred to as “X” in the media, became pregnant due to rape and attempted to travel to the U.K. to have an abortion.  The girl’s family informed the Irish police of their plans in the hopes that they could use a DNA test after the abortion to prosecute her rapist.  Instead, the Attorney General of Ireland used the news of the girl’s travel to invoke an injunction under the 8th amemdment, effectively prohibiting the girl from travelling abroad to have an abortion.  News of her forced pregnancy caused the young girl to become suicidal and her family brought her case to court, arguing that her suicidal state should allow her to legally access an abortion.  Later that year, the Supreme Court of Ireland ruled in the case of The Attorney General vs. X and others that women could not be prevented from travelling abroad to access abortion and that the risk of suicide by the mother sufficed as grounds for legal abortion as it posed a significant risk to the mother’s life [6] [7].
 
However, there was still no clear legislation on the legality of abortion when the mother’s life was in danger.  In 2012, a 31-year-old woman by the name of Savita Halappanavar died in an Irish hospital due to sepsis from a miscarriage after being repeatedly denied an abortion [8]. This led to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act of 2013 which made it clear that abortion was permissible in Ireland if pregnancy posed a significant risk to the mother’s life [9].
 
The death of Sativa Halappanavar also reignited the abortion debate in Ireland, which culminated in the referendum held in May.  She became the face of the “yes” campaign and prompted a nationwide conversation on the ethics of the country’s abortion laws [10]. Turnout for the referendum was high at 64% and the ban was resoundingly overturned by a vote of 66.4% to 33.6% in a decisive victory for the yes campaign [11]. These numbers reflected an almost identical flip in voting from the 1983 referendum which instituted the ban - in that referendum 66.9% of the electorate voted for the ban while 33.1% voted against [12]. Additionally, the yes campaign galvanized behind the #HomeToVote campaign which resulted in thousands of Irish expats flying home to vote in the referendum as Irish law stipulates that all referenda votes must take place in person [13]. Regarding the outcome of the referendum, the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, addressed the country, saying “ To those who voted no, I know today is not welcome.  You may feel that the country has taken the wrong turn, is no longer a country you recognize. I would like to reassure you that Ireland is still the same country today as it was before, just a little more tolerant, open and respectful” [14].
 
Despite the resounding victory for women’s rights, not all women on the island of Ireland will be able to access safe and legal abortion.  Abortion remains illegal, and punishable by life in prison, in Northern Ireland.  As part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland was granted significant autonomy in governance from the Good Friday Agreement [15]. Thus, although abortion is legal in the United Kingdom it remains entirely illegal in Northern Ireland.  It is unclear when and if the country will have a chance to revise its abortion laws as social issues frequently take a backseat to the deep sectarian divide that has plagued the country’s politics since its formation [16]. The country’s National Assembly has been suspended since a coalition government failed in January of 2017 so no legislating of any type has been able to take place, making it legitimately impossible to revise the country’s abortion laws despite overwhelming public support for the measure [17] [18]. For now, women in the North will have to travel to England, Scotland, Wales, or soon the Republic of Ireland, to access safe and legal abortion.
 
[1] Freytas-Tamura and Specia, “Understanding Ireland’s Vote on Whether to Keep Its Abortion Ban.”
[2] “Europe’s Abortion Rules.”
[3] Serhan, “Ireland’s Very Secular Vote on Abortion.”
[4] O’Carroll, “History Lesson.”
[5] Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1983.
[6] “Ireland May Be About to Repeal One of Europe’s Strictest Abortion Laws.”
[7] A.G. v. X [1992] IESC 1; [1992] 1 IR 1 (5th March, 1992).
[8] Specia, “How Savita Halappanavar’s Death Spurred Ireland’s Abortion Rights Campaign.”
[9] Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013.
[10] Specia, “How Savita Halappanavar’s Death Spurred Ireland’s Abortion Rights Campaign.”
[11] “Landslide Vote Overturns Irish Abortion Ban.”
[12] O’Carroll, “History Lesson.”
[13] “Thousands of Irish Expats Flock Home for Abortion Referendum.”
[14] Freytas-Tamura, “Ireland Votes to End Abortion Ban, in Rebuke to Catholic Conservatism.”
[15] “BBC - History - The Good Friday Agreement.”
[16] Freytas-Tamura and Cowell, “After Ireland Abortion Vote, Northern Irish Ask, ‘Why Not Us?”
[17] Freytas-Tamura and Cowell.
[18] Kingsley, “Northern Ireland Is Sinking Into a ‘Profound Crisis.’”
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dublin_Savita_Halappanavar_Rally_115.jpg
 
Works Cited
A.G. v. X [1992] IESC 1; [1992] 1 IR 1 (5th March, 1992) (IESC (1992) not found).
“BBC - History - The Good Friday Agreement.” Accessed June 20, 2018. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/good_friday_agreement.
Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1983 (n.d.).
“Europe’s Abortion Rules,” February 12, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6235557.stm.
Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de. “Ireland Votes to End Abortion Ban, in Rebuke to Catholic Conservatism.” The New York Times, May 27, 2018, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/world/europe/ireland-abortion-yes.html.
Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de, and Alan Cowell. “After Ireland Abortion Vote, Northern Irish Ask, ‘Why Not Us?’” The New York Times, May 29, 2018, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/northern-ireland-abortion.html.
Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de, and Megan Specia. “Understanding Ireland’s Vote on Whether to Keep Its Abortion Ban.” The New York Times, June 9, 2018, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/world/europe/ireland-abortion-referendum-explainer.html.
“Ireland May Be About to Repeal One of Europe’s Strictest Abortion Laws.” Time. Accessed June 20, 2018. http://time.com/5286910/ireland-abortion-laws-history/.
Kingsley, Patrick. “Northern Ireland Is Sinking Into a ‘Profound Crisis.’” The New York Times, December 7, 2017, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/europe/northern-ireland-stormont-adams.html.
“Landslide Vote Overturns Irish Abortion Ban.” BBC News, May 26, 2018, sec. Europe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44256152.
O’Carroll, Sinead. “History Lesson: What Happened during the 1983 Abortion Referendum?” TheJournal.ie. Accessed June 20, 2018. http://www.thejournal.ie/abortion-referendum-1983-what-happened-1225430-Dec2013/.
Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, Pub. L. No. 35, Pt.3 S.21 (2013).
Serhan, Yasmeen. “Ireland’s Very Secular Vote on Abortion.” The Atlantic, May 25, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/irelands-secular-vote-on-abortion/560336/.
Specia, Megan. “How Savita Halappanavar’s Death Spurred Ireland’s Abortion Rights Campaign.” The New York Times, May 28, 2018, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/europe/savita-halappanavar-ireland-abortion.html.
“Thousands of Irish Expats Flock Home for Abortion Referendum.” Time. Accessed June 20, 2018. http://time.com/5288341/home-to-vote-ireland-abortion-referendum/.
 
 
The opinions and views expressed through this publication are the opinions of the designated authors and do not reflect the opinions or views of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal, our staff, or our clients.