Irish lawmakers back abortion bill

Catholic leaders call proposal ‘a Trojan horse.’

DUBLIN — Ireland appeared on course to legalize abortion in limited circumstances as lawmakers voted Tuesday to support a bill that would permit a pregnancy to be terminated when deemed necessary to save a woman’s life.

Catholic leaders warned that the proposed law, which faces potential amendments this week and a final vote next week, was a “Trojan horse” designed to permit widespread abortion access in Ireland. But Prime Minister Enda Kenny insisted Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion would remain unaffected, and his government’s Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill won overwhelming backing in a 138-24 vote.

Ireland’s 1986 constitutional ban on abortion commits the government to defend the life of the unborn and the mother equally. Ireland’s abor- tion law has been muddled since 1992, when the Supreme Court ruled that this “ban” actually meant that terminations should be legal if doctors deem one essential to safeguard the life of the woman — including, most controversially, from her own suicide threats.

Kenny’s government had been under pressure to pass a law on life-saving abortions ever since the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2011 that Ireland’s inaction forced women to face unnecessary medical dangers.

But the catalyst for change was Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist who died last year in a western Ireland hospital one week after being admitted in severe pain at the start of a miscarriage. Doctors cited Ireland’s ill-defined laws when denying her pleas for an abortion.

By the time doctors authorized an abortion, Halappanavar had already been hospitalized for four days, and the 17-week-old fetus was stillborn. She fell into a state of toxic shock, then into a coma, and died from massive organ failures three days later.