Ireland: Voters reject stricter abortion ban

Off Our Backs, May/Jun 2002 by Douglas, Carol Anne, Heart, Debony, Ruby, Jennie, Mantilla, Karla

Europe

DUBLIN-On March 7, Irish voters turned down a proposal that would have barred women who are suicidal from obtaining abortions. Only 50.4 percent of voters rejected the proposal, and there was a low turnout. Ireland already bans almost all abortions. The measure was proposed by Prime Minister Brian Ahern.

In 1983, Irish voters approved a measure that barred the parliament from approving any laws to permit abortions. In 1992, the voters approved a proposal to allow women to obtain information about legal abortions in other countries and to travel to other countries to get abortions. About 7,000 Irish women go to England each year to have abortions.

Also in 1992, Ireland's supreme court decided that abortion was legal if there was a risk to a woman's life, even if that risk was suicide. But doctors have been unwilling to provide abortions for suicidal women.

Ireland's constitution says that women and fetuses both have a right to life.

-info from The New York Times, 3/6 and 3/7