Ruling paves way for vote on repealing the Eighth
A SUPREME Court ruling yesterday on the rights of the unborn will allow the Government to go ahead with a planned abortion referendum.
In a case that stemmed from an appeal against deportation, the nation’s most senior judges unanimously overturned a High Court ruling and said the unborn has no constitutional rights outside the Eighth Amendment and its related provisions.
It now leaves a clear-cut choice for the voters in May’s likely referendum on repealing 1983’s Eighth Amendment on the equal right to life of the unborn and the mother, a provision that bans abortion.
Politicians and pro-choice groups welcomed the ruling.
The pro-life side said the highest court in the land had made it clear the Eighth Amendment was the sole Constitutional bulwark against abortion, with some indicating it justified the wisdom of inserting it in the first place.
The Cabinet meets today to clear the Referendum Bill. It will hear formally from Attorney General Séamus Woulfe, the Government’s chief legal officer. A Dáil debate could begin tonight, and a sitting of the House is likely tomorrow.
In response to the Supreme Court judgment, Health Minister Simon Harris tweeted: ‘Now we can get on with allowing the people of Ireland have their say in a referendum this May. I will now bring the Referendum Bill to Cabinet.’
After the ruling, Leo Varadkar appealed in the Dáil for a respectful abortion debate.
The Taoiseach said: ‘This is going to be a profoundly deep and difficult debate for many people in this country. It is my strong wish that it be a respectful debate and one that is never personalised.
‘I know everyone will want to show leadership and ensure the debate is respectful of all sides and opinions because people are entitled to their personal opinions on this deep issue of conscience.’
Mr Varadkar said the referendum would be about asking the Irish public to change our basic and most fundamental law ‘to say that we, as a country, people and State, trust women to make these decisions for themselves and to decide in the early weeks of pregnancy whether they want to be pregnant and whether they are able and willing to be mothers’.
‘It is also a question of trusting our doctors to determine later in pregnancy when it is medically appropriate for a termination to occur,’ he added, referring to draft legislation that will allow abortions later than 12 weeks in cases of a medically certified threat to the mother’s health and in cases of diagnosed fatal foetal abnormality.
The Pro Life Campaign’s legal adviser, William Binchy, said the Supreme Court judgment ‘makes it all the more necessary to oppose the Government’s proposal to introduce abortion on demand’.
Senator Catherine Noone, who chaired the Oireachtas hearings on abortion, said: ‘I urge us all to accept the Supreme Court’s judgment in good faith and move forward in a civilised and respectful manner, as has been the case for the most part so far.’
‘Deep and difficult debate’