Guardian News and Media/Belfast
Irish parliamentarians passed a groundbreaking law allowing limited abortion rights in the republic.
Enda Kenny and his coalition government pushed through the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill, which will allow for abortions only when a woman’s life is under threat if her pregnancy continues or if she is suicidal.
Despite threats of excommunication from cardinals and bishops a privately devout Catholic prime minister eventually won the vote after a marathon two-day debate in the Dail.
Members of the Dail voted by 127 to 31 to legalise abortion in cases of medical emergencies as well as the risk of suicide.
However, pro-choice and anti-abortion groups have already threatened court cases to challenge the new law. The legislation passed through the Dail after 24 hours of tortuous debate will not stop the annual abortion trail from Ireland to Britain.
According to Irish department of health figures released on Thursday around 4,000 Irish women travelled to British hospitals and clinics to terminate their pregnancies last year.
They included 124 who were under the age of 18.
The new law also does not include their cases which include women who were raped, meaning that this grim traffic across the Irish Sea will continue.
Mara Clarke, director of the London-based Abortion Support Network, a charity that raises money to help women afford the £400-£2,000 it costs to travel and pay privately for an abortion in England, condemned the restriction on an Irish woman’s right to choose. She said: “Given that the Irish government has now had more than 22 years to legislate on the X case, I’m not sure what the hold-up is but then I’m not an expert on Irish abortion law.
“I am an expert in what happens to women when access to abortion is restricted. Even if this law is enacted, only a very, very small percentage of women who need abortions will be able to access them in Ireland.
“Women pregnant as result of rape, women with fatal foetal anomalies, couples who simply can’t afford to care for a (or in most cases, another) child, will still be left behind.
“This week alone, Abortion Support Network has heard from a woman whose abusive husband hid her passport so she couldn’t travel for an abortion, a woman who considered crashing her car to induce a miscarriage, and a couple whose very wanted pregnancy had catastrophic foetal anomalies and these were only three of the 10 women who contacted us last week.”