Abortion vote is product of “a quiet revolution”
The Irish have swept aside one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the developed world in a landslide vote that reflects Ireland’s emergence as a socially liberal country no longer obedient to Catholic dictates.
With all ballots counted and turnout at an historic high, election officials reported that 66.4 percent voted to overturn Ireland’s abortion ban and 33.6 percent opposed the measure.
The vote count on Saturday mirrored the results of two respected exit polls, which suggested a decisive win for the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution. The 1983 amendment enshrined an “equal right to life” for mothers and “the unborn” and outlawed almost all abortions — even in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or risk to maternal health.
“What we have seen today is a culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years,” said Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
The turnout was a record-breaking 64.1 percent — the highest ever for a referendum vote. By comparison, turnout was just over 60 percent when Ireland voted to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015.
Ireland’s political leadership has promised that Parliament will quickly pass a new law guaranteeing unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks, and beyond that in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or serious risks to a mother’s health. That would bring Ireland’s access to abortion more in line with the other 27 members of the European Union.
Varadkar said the new legislation would be enacted by the end of the year. “The people knew what we had in mind, and I don’t think it would be right to depart from that at all,” he said.
Simon Harris, Ireland’s Minister of Health, said a bill would be written this summer. “The people of Ireland have told us to get on with it,” he said.
Harris said he was as surprised as everyone with the high turnout and outsized vote for repeal. “If you can find anybody today who said they were expecting this majority, I’d love to meet them. I don’t think anybody was expecting this margin,” he said.
Campaigners for repeal, watching the votes being counted in auditoriums and civil halls around Ireland, were tweeting that most boxes contained a majority for repeal.
In Dublin constituencies, the vote was running 75 percent for repeal.
In Roscommon-galway, the only constituency to reject same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, the “Yes” vote for overturning the abortion ban was at 57 percent, with two-thirds of the ballots counted.
The exit polls released by Irish broadcaster RTE and another from the Irish Times saw two-thirds of the vote going to repeal. Women outpolled men in the exits, but men still supported the yes side. So did farmers and rural counties. Support was largest among the young and urban.
Irish Times columnist Finan O’toole tweeted: “For all the attempts to divide us into tribes, the exit poll shows that every part of Ireland has voted in broadly the same way, which is to trust women and make them fully equal citizens.”
The tally of the vote began at 9 a.m. Saturday, with a final count expected by late afternoon or early evening. About 3.3 million Irish had registered to vote, and many appeared to be returning from abroad to cast ballots.
In Ireland, seeking or providing an abortion has been punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Since 2013, there has been an exception for when a mother’s life is at risk.
“I feel very emotional. I’m especially grateful to the women of Ireland who came forward to provide their personal testimony about the hard times that they endured, the stress and the trauma that they experienced because of the eighth amendment,” said Ireland’s Minister for Children and youth affairs Katherine Zappone.
John Mcguirk, a leader of one of the prominent anti-abortion groups, called Save the 8th, called the vote was “a tragedy of historic proportions.”
On Facebook, Mcguirk’s organization posted, “Abortion was wrong yesterday. It remains wrong today.” The group said it would fight the legislation.