Abortion, Ireland and of Europe
01 January 1991
Abortion, Ireland and of Europe
artdoc June=1992
The future of the Maastricht Treaty is in question following the
response of the Irish Attorney General and judiciary to the rape
of a 14-year-old Dublin girl. The Treaty has to be ratified by
all EC member states before it becomes law and in the case of
Ireland this requires a referendum.
The referendum, now scheduled for the 18th of June, could result
in a `no' vote because both sides in the abortion debate fear
that the Treaty will institutionalize a position which neither
wants. The Church fears abortion will become easier because of
EC guarantees of freedom of information and travel, while women's
groups are worried that the Treaty will merely confirm the very
limiting domestic legal judgements made following the rape. In
addition, there is a sizeable lobby concerned that the Maastricht
Treaty will diminish Irish sovereignty, in particular
compromising Ireland's traditional neutrality with regard to NATO
and other military alliances.
When the Treaty was finalized in December 1991, the Irish
government asked for a special clause recognising Ireland's
constitutional ban on abortion. Abortion has always been illegal
in Ireland under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, but
Catholic Church based pressure groups and the Church hierarchy
itself sought to strengthen the anti abortion position through
an amendment to the written constitution.
The 1983 `Pro-Life referendum' secured an amendment which
declares that `The State acknowledges the right to life of the
unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the
mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and as far as is
practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.'
During the extremely bitter and divisive campaign on the Pro-Life
referendum, opponents warned that the amendment would lead to the
closure of advice and counselling services, and even to
individual women being stopped from boarding boats or having to
prove they weren't pregnant before getting on planes to London.
Indeed, having secured the amendment, the anti-abortion groups
have initiated a series of court cases. These have resulted in
the closure of two women's health clinics, the removal of books
on women's health (such as Our Bodies, Ourselves) from the
shelves of public libraries, and the printing of special editions
of British women's magazines excluding advertisements which might
provide information to those seeking abortions. As the Observer
and Irish Times columnist Mary Holland put it, `information about
abortion is now only available through the kind of underground
network that existed in Britain before 1967'.
In February, the parents of the rape victim went to the police
to report the crime. They also said they were taking their
daughter to England for an abortion. Apparently, the police then
contacted the DPP's office to arrange for the British authorities
to sample the foetal tissue for DNA testing. This, they assumed,
would secure the conviction of the culprit. On hearing the
parents' intentions, the Attorney General applied for and was
granted an injunction preventing the parents from taking their
daughter to England, even though they were already there. Fearing
prosecution for contempt, the parents returned.
The High Court ruled that, although the rape victim had been
sexually abused for some two years by an `evil and depraved man',
and was contemplating suicide, the threat to the life of the
unborn was overriding. The case then went to the Supreme Court.
Here the application of EC law on freedom of movement, as well
as the interpretation of domestic law was put to the test. In a
three-to-two majority ruling, domestic law on the right to life
of the unborn was judged to take precedence over the right to
freedom of movement between EC member states. Nevertheless, on
an interpretation of the constitution, the Supreme Court ruled
that the rape vic