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ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
The Safe and Legal (in Ireland) Abortion Rights Campaign is of unique significance, as it represents the first major initiative aimed at moving forward on abortion in this country. Anti-choice groups seeking further regressive and unworkable responses to abortion have always led previous campaigns on abortion.
Since the first Constitutional referendum on abortion in 1983, Ireland has changed: more women living in Ireland access abortion services and more women feel angry and frustrated that they have to travel to Britain and other countries to secure these services. The only thing that has not changed is the lack of courage and leadership demonstrated by successive Governments in dealing with abortion in a realistic and rational way.
The Safe and Legal (in Ireland) Abortion Rights Campaign is all about ending the hypocrisy of exiling women in crisis pregnancy that choose to have an abortion. The campaign includes various strands, including a litigation strand, a public awareness strand and a national and international advocacy strand.
We hope that the campaign will be the catalyst for what will become a very significant movement for legal abortion in Ireland. Over the coming months and years, we hope to mobilise people on this issue and secure political commitments particularly in advance of the next general election here in Ireland, about moving forward on abortion.
A key component of the campaign is the challenge by three Irish women, ABC v Ireland, in the European Court of Human Rights. The three women, ABC, are basing their complaint around four Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
These include Article 8 with regard to the right of privacy in all family, home and personal interests, and entitlement to no public interference from any public authority in exercising this right; Article 3 which protects individuals from 'inhuman or degrading treatment'; Article 2 which affords protection of the law to safe-guard the life of an individual and Article 14 which affords rights and freedoms without discrimination on any grounds.
As Ireland’s abortion rights campaign - we seek to raise awareness, fight stigma and realise rights for the 6000 Irish women who are forced to travel Britain to have an abortion each year. We know that at least 123,258 women travelled from Ireland to Britain for abortions between January 1980 and December 2005.
We believe that it is time now for the Irish Government to face up to the reality of abortion in Ireland and to end the hypocrisy of our legal ban on abortion. It is now almost 15 years after politicians promised to legislate for the X case, and we’re still waiting. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution leaves an undefined term ‘unborn’ in Article 40.3.3. This must be repealed.
We need your support. Please join our campaign by signing up to our e-newsletter, clicking our Take Action section and following through on some e-advocacy, or by sending us a donation via paypal. Together with your support we can help legalise abortion in Ireland.
ABC V Ireland
ABC v Ireland involves three Irish women bringing the court case to the ECHR are arguing that their human rights are being violated under Article 8 which relate to the right of privacy in all family, home and personal interests, and entitlement to no public interference from any public authority in exercising this right. They also allege a breach of:
Article 3, which protects individuals from inhuman or degrading treatment. The women argue that the criminalisation of abortion harms women by stigmatising them and increasing feelings of guilt, and can result in difficulty in accessing necessary follow up care.
Article 2, which safeguards the life of an individual. The Irish Government has provided no clear guidance as to when abortion may be legally carried out under the X case, where termination of pregnancy is necessary to save a woman’s life.
Article 14, which affords rights and freedoms without discrimination. The women argue that Irish abortion law discriminates on the basis of sex and financial status. Women are treated differently from men in making decisions concerning their private and family life, and the ban imposes particular burdens on economically disadvantaged women and those who have difficulty travelling because of their age or legal status.
The three Irish women argue that these articles of the European Convention on Human Rights are being flouted by forced travel, forced childbirth, danger to the pregnant woman’s life and discrimination on the grounds of sex and financial status.
This case is the first direct challenge to Irish abortion law by a group of women. While the European Court of Human Rights does not have the authority to revise Irish law, it can find Ireland to be in violation of the human rights convention. If this were to happen, Ireland would be urged to comply with its obligations under the convention.
The Discriminatory Nature of Ireland's Abortion Ban
On a daily basis IFPA counsellors witness how a woman's age, her mental capacity, and her other life circumstances affect her decision whether to carry a pregnancy to term and her ability to do so. Yet, the laws restricting abortion disregard all such factors.
Refugee, Asylum Seeking and migrant women
Women who are refugees, asylum seekers or unregistered migrants face particularly difficult challenges in travelling for an abortion resulting in increased delay, expense, unnecessary hardship and stigma. Refugees or asylum seekers who wish to travel to England for abortion services must apply to the Department of Justice for a visa to re-enter the country. This process is time-consuming and burdensome.
Women often need assistance to negotiate through the bureaucratic visa process with State authorities; for example, needing help to expedite requests, find translation services, and fax documents from a private fax. Apart from the severe burden that the uncertainty of this process imposes upon women, the fees and cost of travel to Dublin add an additional financial burden on refugee or asylum seeker women who are often surviving on state grants of only 19.50 per week.
For migrant women who do not have a work permit or refugee or asylum seeker status, this process of applying for permission to travel can be impossible and can jeopardise their right to be in Ireland. Women may resort to illegal abortion providers or attempt to travel without legal documentation. In the past year the Garda Siochana have found evidence of a return to illegal, unsafe abortion not seen since the early 1950's.
Women on Low Income
Women on low income are particularly adversely impacted by the ban on abortion. Women living in poverty who are holders of valid medical cards issued by the Health Services Executive are entitled to free health care service for all medical services other than abortion. The IFPA sees a great many women who seek counselling assistance not because they are uncertain about their options but because they are in need of financial assistance. Many women experiencing poverty turn to moneylenders who charge extortionate rates for short-term loans to cover the cost of abortion and required travel.
Young Women
For young women the experience of travel itself can be very difficult or intimidating. They have increased difficulties raising funds and often remain isolated because they fear telling anyone about their situation. Sometimes young women are accompanied to counselling by a parent or other relative or a friend. However, many young women travel without first seeking counselling or informing anyone that they are leaving the country. Young women in particular often do not feel comfortable consulting their family doctor or general practitioner ("GP") for fear they will be judged for being pregnant or considering abortion or that their confidentiality will be breached.
Those women who have Irish citizenship but who lack a passport or driver's license face additional difficulties travelling. To seek a passport on an expedited basis requires a woman to disclose that she is travelling to seek an abortion, a disclosure that often remains in her file at her local passport office.
Women in Care or in the Control of the State
Those in care or in the control of the state face additional barriers in accessing services abroad. (Expand).
Abortion - A Women's Health Issue
The ban on abortion in Ireland is the most extreme in Europe. Abortion is criminalised, attracting a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Irish law makes no provision for legal abortion when a woman has a severe foetal anomaly, is pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or experiences serious complications from pregnancy that threaten her health or well-being. Serious but not necessarily life-threatening complications from pregnancy may include: infections, heart failure, malignant hypertension, including pre-eclampsia, uncontrollable diabetes, renal disease, or severe depression. Despite a relatively low rate of maternal mortality in Ireland, carrying a pregnancy to term presents greater risks to a woman's health than does abortion.
For a woman with a severe foetal anomaly the ban on abortion services creates added difficulties that may affect her future childbearing. Because a woman is treated in an abortion clinic abroad, she is most often unable to access vital genetic analysis of foetal remains to determine implications for future pregnancies. Some women attempt to bring foetal remains back to Ireland for genetic testing or burial. On occasion the IFPA counsels women whose doctors have diagnosed a pregnancy with a severe foetal anomaly incompatible with life. These women often have wanted pregnancies and are extremely distressed. Most often such abnormalities are not diagnosed until after the 14 th week of pregnancy. A woman who is treated in an abortion clinic abroad or by an illegal abortion provider, is unable to access vital genetic analysis of foetal remains to determine implications for future pregnancies
For a woman who becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest, pregnancy often represents a further assault on her ability to control her body and life choices. Women who are victims of sexual assault often experience shame, anxiety, depression and a reduced capacity for intimacy or social interaction. For a woman pregnant as a result of a sexual assault, the criminalisation of abortion further perpetuates the stigma and other negative feelings. Women resident in Ireland cannot avail of advances in medical care due to the exigencies of travel and must undergo surgical procedures abroad where less invasive ones are available to women resident in jurisdictions with safe and legal abortion services. The delay in accessing abortion abroad lengthens the woman's recovery and produces more hardship and detriment to a her health and well-being. The clandestine nature of accessing abortion abroad means that women are not able to work with law enforcement agencies to preserve foetal tissue for use to prosecute an accused rapist.
Women who attend their GP for advice, support and information before or after having an abortion abroad have varying experiences. Because of the extreme nature of Ireland's abortion law, some doctors incorrectly believe it is illegal to provide follow-up care to women. Women feel the stigma and shame of seeking services that are banned in Ireland and thus do not always feel comfortable disclosing this information even to their health care providers.
The denial of abortion services puts at risk the health of those women who must seek abortions at a later stage in their pregnancy, often due to lack of proper counselling or information. Many Irish women who travel for abortion services cannot avail themselves of customary medical supervision after the abortion has taken place. Criminalising abortion places a stigma on necessary health care.
Domestic Consensus in Favour of a Change in the Abortion Laws
Following the C case the government appointed a cabinet committee to oversee the drafting of a Green Paper on Abortion. The Green Paper was published in 1999 with the aim of setting out and analysing the issues on abortion and outlining the options available for reform. On foot of the report, the All-Party Committee on the Constitution held further hearings and reported to the Cabinet Sub-Committee in 2000 in the form of its Fifth Progress Report.
The Government proposed a referendum which sought to give Constitutional approval to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill) 2002. The core objective of the referendum was to over-turn the 'X Case' ruling in an attempt to further restrict abortion rights in Ireland. On March 6 th this bill was defeated. Voter turnout was 42. 89% of which 49.58% voted yes while 50.42% voted no. To date, the legal situation in relation to abortion in Ireland, remains unchanged.
A domestic consensus favours some legalisation of abortion laws in Ireland, as well as throughout Europe. Irish people have never been given the option of voting for the legalisation of abortion. Substantial polling data suggests that the majority of the population favours greater access to abortion in Ireland. In sharp contrast to the Government's support for the current near-total ban on abortion, the most recent national survey of the population (ages 18 - 45), conducted by the State's Crisis Pregnancy Agency in 2003, found that 51% thought that a woman "should always have a choice to have an abortion, regardless of the circumstances; g8% felt that a woman should never have this choice, 2% had no opinion and the remaining proportion (39%) of participants felt that there should be a choice in certain circumstances". The study further found support for abortion in various circumstances had increased substantially in the past two decades, such that 86% of respondents thought a woman should have a choice to have an abortion if the pregnancy seriously endangered her health or was the result of rape or incest. Other major polls show similar support for access to legal abortion in Ireland.
See http://www.plannedparenthood.com/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo (citing Cherry, Sheldon & Irwin Merkatz, eds. (4th ed. 1991), Complications of Pregnancy: Medical, Surgical, Gynecologic, Psychosocial, and Perinatal ; and Maureen Paul et al. (1999), A Clinician's Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion.
" The risk of death associated with childbirth is about 11 times as high as that associated with abortion." Bartlett LA et al., Risk factors for legal induced abortion-related mortality in the United States, 2004, Obstetrics and Gynecology , 103(4):729-737.
The IFPA has filed written comments in a case pending before the European Court of Human Rights, D. v. Ireland , Application No. 26499/02, in which the applicant travelled abroad for an abortion of a foetus with severe foetal anomalies incompatible with life.
Such was the scenario that lead to the Irish Supreme Court's decision in Attorney General v. X , [1992] 1 I.R. 1, a case which started when the family of a 14-year-old rape victim contacted the local police to inquire about preserving foetal tissue to prosecute the rapist after the girl planned an abortion in England. The Attorney General obtained an injunction prohibiting the girl or her family from travelling for nine months. The injunction ultimately was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court which held that the girl could obtain an abortion in Ireland because her life was at risk due to the fact that she had become suicidal.
Kay Rundle et al., Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study at p.16 (Crisis Pregnancy Agency, September 2004).
An Irish Times/MRBI poll of 11 December 1997 found that 77% of those surveyed believed that abortion facilities should be provided in Ireland for terminations in certain circumstances: 28% for those who need it; 14% for a risk to a woman's health; 35% for a risk to a woman's life; 18% opposed abortion in all circumstances and 6% had no opinion. In 2001, a poll by Lansdowne Market Research of a nationally representative sample of 1,122 people over age 15 found that 62% of those polled believed that all or some of the many Irish women who travel to Britain for abortions should be allowed access to abortion in Ireland; 41% believed that a woman should not have to travel for an abortion if her health was to be irreparably damaged by continuation of pregnancy.
See http://www.iccl.ie/women/abortion. An Ireland on Sunday poll (24/2/02) found 44% in favour of abortion being available in Ireland in limited circumstances including when the woman's mental health was at risk or there was a risk of suicide, and 14% supported abortion in almost all circumstances, 13% in limited circumstances, 8% did not know and only 21% thought abortion should never be available in Ireland.
The most recent available poll, conducted by Irish Times/MRBI (1/3/05) found 57% in favour of abortion being available in Ireland in certain circumstances, 9% in favour of available abortion in all circumstances, 6 % had no opinion and 28% believed abortion should never be available in Ireland.
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