Voters in Ireland repeal abortion ban in landslide

DUBLIN — Irish voters cleared the way for abortions to be legal in their country for the first time by repealing a constitutional ban on the procedure and authorizing legislators to reflect the popular will by giving pregnant women a choice, results from a landmark referendum showed Saturday.

Voters in Friday’s referendum supported rescinding the ban, adopted in 1983 as the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, by 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent, the final count showed. The size of the win for abortion rights exceeded expectations and was cast as a historic victory for women’s rights.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, speaking after the official tally was announced at crowded Dublin Castle, hailed the momentous outcome as a “once in a generation vote” that showed the electorate’s concern “for the next generation.”

“The wrenching pain of decades of mistreatment of Irish women cannot be unlived,” Varadkar, who backed repeal, said. “However, today we have ensured that it does not have to be lived again.”

Opponents of the repeal movement conceded defeat Saturday after exit polls from the night before suggested more than twothirds of voters had backed repeal.

John McGuirk, spokesman for the Save the 8th group, told Irish television Saturday that many Irish citizens would not recognize the country in which they were waking up. The group said on its website that the referendum’s outcome was a “tragedy of historic proportions,” but McGuirk said the vote must be respected.

The referendum will remove the Eighth Amendment, which required Irish authorities to defend the lives of a woman and a fetus as equals under the law from the moment of conception. In practical terms, the amendment outlawed all abortions until 2014, when terminations in rare cases when a woman’s life was at risk started being allowed.

Campaigners who have fought for more than three decades to overturn the amendment celebrated the referendum vote as a major breakthrough for largely Catholic Ireland.

The vote is a “rejection of an Ireland that treated women as second-class citizens,” said Orla O’Connor, co-director of the Together for Yes group.

The referendum will likely end the need for thousands of Irish women to travel abroad — mostly to neighboring Britain — for abortions.

The prime minister said the large vote favoring repeal will give his government a greater mandate when drafting abortion legislation that will be submitted for parliamentary approval in months.

In a conciliatory gesture to Irish voters with strong anti-abortion views, Varadkar said abortion and teenage pregnancy rates already are falling and that his government will ensure there are fewer crisis pregnancies and better sex education in schools.

PETER MORRISON/AP A woman from the “Yes” campaign shows her joy after the final count was announced Saturday in Dublin, Ireland. Irish voters passed the repeal 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent.