A United Nations report Thursday has found that Ireland’s ban on abortion is discriminatory, cruel and degrading toward women and has called upon the country to legalize the practice for cases involving fatal abnormalities.
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Despite asking her doctors for an abortion, she was forced to choose between carrying the foetus to term in Ireland, knowing it would not survive, or travelling overseas for an abortion. Even in such cases, Ireland’s ban requires women to carry the fetus to full term or travel overseas, usually to England, for abortions.
She had to leave the fetus’s remains behind, but they were unexpectedly mailed to her three weeks later.
The Committee says Ireland is obliged to prevent similar violations from occurring and the State should amend its law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, including if necessary changing the constitution.
“This can not happen until Article 40.3.3 [also known as the Eight Amendment] is repealed, until abortion is decriminalised and legislation is adopted to enable women to access services in Ireland”.
Past year new rules came into effect under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 to allow for abortion when there is a real and substantial risk to a woman’s life – including the threat of suicide.
Mellet was denied any access to state-funded bereavement counseling in Ireland because Irish maternity hospitals are permitted to provide such services only to women who agree to carry their fetuses to birth or miscarriage.
They claimed the woman “was subjected to discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a result of Ireland’s legal prohibition of abortion”.
However, Ireland is now obliged to avoid similar violations to those suffered by Ms Mellet as it has signed the global covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR), which forms part of the worldwide bill on human rights.
It said Ms Mellet’s suffering was aggravated by the obstacles she faced in getting information about the appropriate medical options. The committee said the woman should be compensated and that the ban should be lifted in the case of fatal fetal anomalies.
The committee’s findings come after a complaint from a woman in Ireland.
“The UN’s ruling recognises this and echoes what the IFPA hears every day: obliging women and girls to leave the state and travel overseas for abortion services is cruel, inhuman and degrading”, she said.
“The human rights committee has made it clear that to redress the violations that I suffered, the Irish government must ensure that other women do not live through similar violations of their rights”.
“The Irish government must take its head out of the sand and see that it has to tackle this issue”, said Colm O’Gorman, head of Amnesty International Ireland.
Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, said: “Women must be trusted to make the best choices in their pregnancies and we must respect their decisions, including the decision to end a pregnancy”.
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Speaking in the Dáil, he said a change would require a constitutional amendment.
