BY SARAH CLEARY
This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the historic "X case" ruling whereby suicidal women in Ireland were permitted to travel overseas to obtain an abortion.
Rather than mark this anniversary with further liberalisation of abortion law in Ireland, on March 6 the country went to the polls to vote in a referendum that sought to overturn this judicial ruling by making it illegal for suicidal women to seek an abortion.
The referendum, introduced by the conservative Fianna Fail Party and spearheaded by Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, was narrowly defeated by just over 10,000 votes with those supporting the government's position polling 49.58%. As has been the case with abortion referendums in Ireland in the past, the voter turn-out was small with only 42.89% of those eligible participating.
Under Irish law it is illegal for a woman to have an abortion unless there is a "real and substantial" risk to her life. In 1992 the interpretation of this law was thrown into dispute when a 14-year-old woman who had been raped wanted to travel to Britain to have her pregnancy terminated.
The parents of the young woman went to the police to ask them whether it would be permissible to get samples of DNA from the foetus in order to lay criminal charges against the woman's rapist. The police alerted the attorney general, who obtained a court injunction to prevent the young woman from travelling to Britain. This injunction was greeted with mass anger and pro-choice supporters quickly organised mass protests of up to 15,000 people.
As a result of the protests, the Supreme Court agreed that suicide was in fact a "real and substantial" risk to the woman's life and so lifted the injunction allowing her to travel.
In justifying the referendum and throwing his full weight behind it, Ahern was reported by BBC News as saying that it was necessary to close the loophole in the law as it allowed women to pretend to be suicidal in order to terminate their pregnancies.
Not surprisingly, Ahern was backed by the Roman Catholic Church. It was reported by the Feminist Majority Foundation that at the Friday mass before the referendum, priests read letters encouraging their congregations to vote yes.
In the lead-up to the referendum the Alliance for a No Vote was formed involving a number of different groups including Irish Family Planning, the Socialist Party, Lawyers for Choice, and the Dublin Abortion Rights Group.
A group of 10 psychiatrists also denounced the anti-choice referendum, signing a letter published in the Irish Times which stated that to completely ban abortion would endanger women's lives. The group also condemned statements by Ahern claiming that having a child would be therapeutic for women with suicidal tendencies.
Ireland still has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the Western world. Up until 1986 it was illegal to even provide information on how to obtain an abortion outside of Ireland.
While this latest attack on a woman's right to choose has been defeated, many Irish women still have to travel overseas to obtain an abortion, as at least 100,000 have since 1967.
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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