Ireland's draconian abortion laws put under the spotlight at human rights court

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Wednesday December 09, 2009 20:16

by Fiona Tyrrell - Irish Family Planning Association

The European Court of Human Rights, today (9/12/09), heard a challenge to Ireland’s restrictive laws on abortion.

Momentous day for women's reproductive rights in Ireland

Three women living in Ireland challenged Ireland’s ban on abortion on the grounds that the law jeopardised their health and their wellbeing in violation of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) which is providing support to the three applicants, welcomes the decision by the European Court of Human Rights to hear their case in the its most important forum, the Grand Chamber.

The IFPA wishes to commend the bravery of three applicants in taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights, particularly given the unhelpful nature of abortion discourse in Ireland. The three applicants have waited over five years to have their voices heard at this important forum for the protection of human rights and are looking forward to having their human rights vindicated.

According to the IFPA, today is a hugely significant day for reproductive rights in Ireland. The fact that Ireland’s draconian laws on abortion have been put under the spotlight at this important human rights arena is a landmark for women living in Ireland.

Ireland's restrictions on abortion violate international human rights norms because they inflict such grievous harm to women's health and well-being. The IFPA believes that women and girls’ rights are disproportionately infringed upon by the inaccessibility and criminalisation of safe and legal abortion services in Ireland.

The IFPA is confident that when the Court issues its judgment it will establish a minimum degree of protection to which a woman seeking an abortion to protect her health and well-being would be entitled.

Ireland’s restrictive laws on abortion are totally out of step with those of its European neighbours. Forty four out of 47 European countries provide for abortion to protect women’s health. The overwhelming consensus throughout Europe allows for some access to legal abortion to protect a woman’s health and well-being, applying a more effective, less punitive approach than that which is in force in Ireland. The IFPA believes that women and girls do not give up their human rights when they become pregnant nor should the State take these human rights away with impunity.

The experiences of the women, known as A, B and C, are illustrative of the reality faced by thousands of women in Ireland. Since 1980, at least 138,000 women have been forced to travel abroad to access safe abortion services, enduring unnecessary and unjustifiable physical, emotional and financial hardship.

The IFPA believes that abortion is an intimate aspect of private life, intricately linked with human rights values and principles that protect a woman's sexual and reproductive rights.

Complex court cases where women and girls are cruelly compelled to disclose the most intimate aspects of their life in the public arena in order to receive appropriate health care, albeit in another country, are deplorable avenues for the delivery of medical services.

This case has highlighted in an international forum the Irish Government’s unwillingness to address the reality of women’s lives and health in Irish law and policy.

save preference

Comments (5 of 5)

The twisted sinister agenda of the pro-life movement

by Realist

Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:14

The pro-life movement believe that abortion is murder.
They believe that if a woman or a young girl is raped, if the foetus is aborted, that a murder has taken place.
They believe that if a woman with six children decides she cannot and will not have another baby and has an abortion, that she is a murderer.
They believe that if a teenage girl in secondary school or a young woman in college has sex with a boyfriend, finds herself carrying an unwanted pregnancy and has an abortion with the help and assistance of her parents, relations and friends etc that she and her accomplices are guilty of murder.
They believe that the doctors and nurses and other staff who run abortion clinics are as guilty of murder as the Nazis who ran the concentration and extermination camps.
If these fanatics have their way, thousands of women would be be given life sentences in prison for murder or attempted murder because they had abortions or sought to have abortions along with thousands of parents, lovers, boyfriends, partners, husbands and relations and friends who helped them seek abortions.
Presumeably the majority of Garda time and the majority of court business would be taken up with prosecuting thousands of murder cases every year and vast fortified super prisons would be constructed to house thousands of these convicted murderers.
Luckily we no longer have the death penalty on our statute books or else thousands of women would be executed every year for killing their unborn babies.
This might appear hysterical but when the arguments of the pro-life movement were taken to their logical conclusion this the nightmare where would end up.

The pro-life movement is not a benign group of concerned Catholics who have moral objections to abortion.
They are nothing less than totalitarian fanatics who would drag Ireland back to the dark ages if they could get away with it.

Not all Catholics

by lulu

Fri Dec 11, 2009 16:26

Catholics for Choice campaigns for reproductive rights, including access to abortion.

by bob

Fri Dec 11, 2009 16:31

you can choose but the unborn baby can not!
the taking of a life is murder but i understand your view.
easy abortion opens the door to more and more needless terminations of unwanted babies.
many women have regrets after taking the easy option.
England is not that far away, we have our national law, which is what the huge majority want.
all the best for now,
Robbie~

bloody pro lifers..

by ProChoice

Sat Dec 12, 2009 02:16

They only care about life until it is born. After that they couldn't give a shite whether you have to deal with a pile of crap and poverty for the rest of your unhappy life. You see, it's not pro QUALITY of life.

Meanwhile on this overpopulated planet of ours, much of what passes for life that's already here is just cheap labour, cannon fodder and dies horribly for want of cheap medicines and food without a murmur from "pro lifers"

bunch of hypocrites.

Anyone who really cared about the quality of life would be advocating research into more effective contraception methods and incentivisation programmes and voluntary sterilisation programmes whilst trying to make the lives of those already here at least more bearable with generic medecines and food self sufficiency programmes and campaigns against corporate exploitation and pointless wars for money that displace millions.

Not a squawk out of pro lifers except to picket abortion clinics and harangue women who already have to deal with making a difficult choice about their own body which should concern nobody but themselves

It's SLIGHTLY more complicated, Bob

by Mike Novack

Sat Dec 12, 2009 21:05

True, the fetus will die if disconnected. But does that NECESSARILY mean that to whom connected shouldn't have the right to say "dsconnect anyay".

Let's start with a far-fetched example. Somebody wakes up to find that another person has been connected to them. It is medical reality that the other person cannot be disconnected (say attached to somebody else) and that this attachment must persist for nine months at great inconvenience and some medical risk (small chance fatal, moderate chance of permanent slight damage). Yes we would call somebody praiseworthy who said "leave them attached" but would we blame somebody who said "free me now", and more to the point of this example, would we make freeingn them illegal "because that would kill the attached one".

Yes, that is NOT quite the situation of pregnancy but would you care to try to explain exactly how not? Because in THAT difference (and not "because it will kill the attached one") lies you real reason for wanting abortion to be illegal.

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

The Saker

Lockdown Skeptics

Voltaire Network

Ireland's draconian abortion laws put under the spotlight at human rights court

Comments (5 of 5)