User:Jnestorius/Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2018

Background

Main article: Abortion in the Republic of Ireland

The British Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which made "unlawful procurement of a miscarriage" a crime, remained in force after Irish independence in 1922. The 1983 Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares "the right to life of the unborn ... equal [to the] right to life of the mother", was instigated by the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign for fear that the 1861 prohibition might be weakened by liberal legislators or activist judges. The 1992 "X case" (Attorney General v. X) ruled that abortion is permitted where pregnancy threatens a woman's life, including a threat of suicide. No regulatory framework within the limited scope of the X case judgment was passed until the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, impelled by the 2010 A, B and C v Ireland case in the European Court of Human Rights and the 2012 death of Savita Halappanavar after miscarriage. The 2013 act repealed the 1861 act and makes "destruction of unborn human life" a crime. In the three years 2014–2016 a total of 77 legal abortions were performed under the 2013 act. Illegal surgical abortions in Ireland have been practically unknown since the UK's Abortion Act 1967 made it relatively cheap and easy for Irish women to travel to Great Britain for a legal abortion. The 13th and 14th amendments to the constitution, passed in 1992 after the X case, guarantee the right to information about foreign abortions and to travel abroad for an abortion. The number of women at UK abortion clinics giving Irish addresses peaked at 6,673 in 2001 and was 3,265 in 2016. The decline is partly due to unregulated use of abortion pills illegally delivered from online pharmacies.

While left-wing parties and feminists opposed the 1983 amendment and have advocated its repeal, this was not supported by the two largest parties for most of the interim, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In the 2010s while both parties' leadership opposed broad liberalisation, some accepted the argument for abortion in cases like fatal foetal abnormalities and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, which are not permitted by the 1983 amendment. These became the focus of campaigning after the 2013 act. In the run up to the 2016 general election, a number of parties committed to a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment (Labour, Green Party, Social Democrats, Sinn Féin and Workers' Party) and a group of feminist law academics published model legislation to show what a post-Eighth Amendment abortion law could look like.

A Fine Gael-led government under Taoiseach Enda Kenny took office after the 2016 election with a programme which promised a randomly selected Citizens' Assembly to report on possible changes to the Eighth Amendment, which would be considered by an Oireachtas committee, to whose report the government would respond officially in debates in both houses of the Oireachtas. Leo Varadkar replaced Enda Kenny as Taoiseach on 14 June 2017 and promised to hold a referendum on abortion in 2018. The Citizens' Assembly, chaired by Supreme Court judge Mary Laffoy, discussed the issue from November 2016 to April 2017 with invited experts and stakeholders, and voted to recommend repealing the existing text and replacing it with an explicit mandate for the Oireachtas to legislate on abortion. It also made recommendations for the consequent legislation, which were more liberal than media commentators had expected. The assembly's report was considered from September to December 2017 by a special Oireachtas committee of 21 members, which also discussed the issue with invited experts; its recommendations by majority vote were broadly similar to those of the assembly. However, it said that because of difficulties legislating for rape and incest, abortion should be legal up to 12 weeks' gestation without restriction; on the other hand, it did not favour socio-economic grounds for abortion after 12 weeks. In January 2018, Minister for Health Simon Harris opened the Dáil debate on the committee's report by listing the numbers from each county who travelled to Great Bratain for an abortion in 2016. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin declared that he had changed his view on the issue and gave his support for Repeal of the Eighth Amendment and for the Committee's recommendations.

Further action was called into question by a July 2016 High Court ruling that a foetus was a child within the meaning of Article 42A of the Constitution, which guarantees children's rights. The Supreme Court agreed to expedite the government's appeal of the decision, and on 7 March 2018 overturned the High Court judgment, ruling that a foetus was not a child and had no rights other than the right to life mentioned in Article 40.3.3.