Reader Piet called my attention to a BBC post giving a new ruling from the Belfast High Court on abortion. Up to now, abortion in Northern Ireland (NI), like that in its southern neighbor the Republic of Ireland, is legal only when pregnancy endangers the life of the mother or poses a permanent risk to her mental or physical health. That does not include cases of rape, incest, or that of a fetus having a “fatal fetal abnormality” (FFA) that would certainly result in a dead or doomed fetus but that does not endanger the mother’s life. The penalty for violating this law in Northern Ireland is the harshest in Europe, for it can involve life in prison!
I find these rulings completely irrational and retrograde, and they certainly derive from religious doctrine. It’s especially odd because Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and in England it’s legal to get an early-term abortion. Many Irish women travel there when they’re pregnant.
As the BBC notes, a case was inspired by NI resident Sarah Ewart, who was carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the fetus is missing major parts of the brain. Although such babies are either born dead or die shortly after birth, Ewart was being forced to carry that infant to term. She went to England to get an abortion, and the attention to the case caused NI’s Department of Justice to ask the Court for its opinion.
Justice Horner ruled that Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion law indeed violated Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which says this:
From Horner’s decision
“In the circumstances, given this issue is unlikely to be grasped by the legislature in the foreseeable future, and the entitlement of the citizens of Northern Ireland to have their Convention rights protected by the Courts, I conclude that the Article 8 rights of women in Northern Ireland who are pregnant with FFAs or who are pregnant as a result of sexual crime are breached by the impugned provisions.”
Horner also asked that Northern Ireland’s present law be scrutinized to see if there’s any way it could be considered compatible with this Article. If it wasn’t, then that law was illegal.
Of course if Northern Ireland’s law is illegal, then so is the Republic of Ireland’s. But as far as I know, these Articles are advisory, so a country like the Republic of Ireland that breaches them is not kicked out of the EU.
Amnesty International celebrated the ruling, and on its site also quotes Ms. Ewart:
“I hope that today’s ruling means that I, and other women like me, will no longer have to go through the pain I experienced, of having to travel to England, away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me, to access the healthcare I needed.”
“I, and many women like me have been failed by our politicians. First, they left me with no option but to go to England for medical care. Then, by their refusal to change the law, they left me with no option but to go to the courts on my and other women’s behalf.
“I am an ordinary woman who suffered a very personal family tragedy, which the law in Northern Ireland turned into a living nightmare.”
When most liberal democracies are liberalizing abortion rights, Ireland and Northern Ireland still prohibit abortions of doomed fetuses, or those resulting from rape or incest. What benighted morality would force a woman to carry such infants to term? Oh, right: religious morality.
I lived in Northern Ireland for a while. I heard it remarked that the abortion laws were one of the few things that Catholics and Protestants agree on. You need to bear in mind that the UK is defined (on a passport for example) as the UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND.
Northern Ireland has its own legal system, as does Scotland, whereas Wales goes with the same laws as England, so its not that strange that the law differs (Industrial Law also differs markedly for example)
As I understand Southern Ireland had a referendum which allowed for the legalisation of abortion, however any politician proposing an act carrying it out is potentially committing political suicide (notwithstanding the democratic referendum on his side): rather paradoxical. The decision of a referendum has also to pass to law if it is to be meaningful.
Irish law relates to the Constitution and Amendments, whereas British Law is not based on a Constitution (as I understand they don’t have one).
Nope, there have been three referendums regarding Abortion in Ireland
1983 and the 8th amendment “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
we rejected the 12th amendment which would have added “It shall be unlawful to terminate the life of an unborn unless such termination is necessary to save the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother where there is an illness or disorder of the mother giving rise to a real and substantial risk to her life, not being a risk of self-destruction.”
Accepted the 13th and 14th amendements so now it reads “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.
This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state.
This subsection shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to such conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state.”
In other words passing the 12th and rejecting the 13th and 14th would have meant restricting the right to travel of women in the state.
The next one in 2002 was aimed at removing the ability to have an abortion due to suicidal ideation. It was defeated as well but narrowly.
Thanks for the clarification: I saw the discussion of the Irish situation in relation to referendums, but I have to admit it is pretty difficult to understand.
My understanding of the UK (non Northern Ireland) situation is that technically a woman does not have freedom of choice of abortion on demand, that two doctor’s need to certify that an abortion is advised (giving reasons which can not include that the woman simply has decided that she wants to, these being rathere more stringent).
Stopes Clinic advice:
“Before an abortion can proceed, two doctors must ensure that the requirements of the Abortion Act are fulfilled, and they must both sign the relevant certificate. One of the doctors could be your GP and the other doctor will work at the hospital or clinic where the abortion will take place.”
The 1967 Act defines only certain acceptable circumstances:
The Act provided a defence for Doctors performing an abortion on any of the following grounds:
To save the woman’s life
To prevent grave permanent injury to the woman’s physical or mental health
Under 28 weeks to avoid injury to the physical or mental health of the woman
Under 28 weeks to avoid injury to the physical or mental health of the existing child(ren)
If the child was likely to be severely physically or mentally handicapped
It seems that in practice many abortions in the UK take place in contravention of the 1967 Act (if a woman simply decides she doesn’t want another child for example).
I was trying to make the point that the situation in the UK is technically not much more liberal than the NI or Irish one, though in practice there is virtually a situation of abortion on demand because doctor’s take an extremely ‘wide’ interpretation of the 1967 Act
That living nightmare she is speaking of is the Catholic Church. I should say the fundamentalist of other religions are right in there as well. The Catholics don’t get all the credit in these things.
I have met so many pro lifers who believe that brainless anencephalics are real people for sure.
Apparently all you need to be a person is to have a body. Or not even that. Just a single cell.
Oh, but they don’t extend this to parasitic twins, which are are just undeveloped fetuses in many cases.
Yet I have had them tell me that a genetically defective embryo that will self abort is a real person for sure, and to dispose of it is murder and should carry a life sentence.
It doesnt make any sense. How can a brainless defective blastocyt be a 100% real person, but a parasitic twin not?
Another area of the illogic is that a morula stage embryo passing down a fallopian tube is human. A morula stored in liquid nitrogen, one of many ‘extras’ left over from in vitro fertilization procedures, is nominally human if left frozen. Obviously, morulas used for embryonic stem cell research are human and I guess have a soul.
But the many such morulas not frozen and are discarded (by the couples’ wishes) or were used but failed to implant are, apparently, off the radar. An excess of early human morulas are made in in vitro fertilization procedures, and the majority will never make it.
A pro lifer recently told me that hormonal bcp should be illegal, because prevention of implantation is murder. Yes, a woman doesn’t even have the right to prevent pregnancy, not even from rape, according to her.
And yeah, many thousands of blastocysts are discarded or donated for research. I haven’t seen any pro lifers try to shoot up an IVF clinic. The couple sign a consent form and the embryos are donated.
But they go after PP because it is the largest provider of contraception and sex ed, and the religious right hates that.
Question for “pro” lifers: You’re in a burning building, in a room with a four-month old baby and a cryo tank full of 100 frozen embryos. You have to get out, and can only carry one.
Do you save the baby, or the hundred “souls”? L
i have asked that numerous times.
They usually say that they’d save the baby, but only because it can feel pain/has a family.
No, they don’t really consider embryos to be equivalent to born children.
But they have to pretend that they do, because you can’t exactly ban abortion without elevating the embryo to full personhood status now can you? Except they don’t want embryos to be treated as persons in *any other circumstance* but pregnancy.
“I have met so many pro lifers who believe that brainless anencephalics are real people for sure.”
Well they recognise their own kind.
[/snark]
cr
I’m looking forward to the next couple of decades when Ireland will catch up with most of the rest of the world. It might take another generation, but hopefully 20 years will do it.
Just to clarify: the Convention of Human Rughts is not advisory but well binding. At the same time, it has nothing to do with the EU, it is connected with the Council of Europe instead. Which, even though many do not know it, is not the EU but a completely different international organisation.
I was going to make that same comment.
However, I’ll add that in the UK, the superior courts, if they find the ECHR has been violated, can only issue a “declaration of incompatibility” and ask Parliament to change the law. They have no power to strike down an Act.
If I can rant for a second, as far as I’m concerned this whole issue is about a bunch of weak men who feel threatened by women and will do whatever they can to retain power and control.
Real men don’t feel the need to oppress women, whether physically, sexually, or using a bunch of made up rules from a non-existent god.
You can rant all you want Heather. The real men should know enough to keep their mouths shut and let women decide this issue. It’s the application of religion ruining everything.
Cheers Randy. 🙂
Men are allowed an opinion though – I’m for equality not female domination. The problem is too many men think they have the right to tell women what to do, and even suggesting they don’t have that right seems to drive some into a frenzy.
And you’re right about religion, of course.
“…weak men who feel threatened by women and will do whatever they can to retain power and control.”
That, and a sort of corollary in that empowered women may be more likely to drift away from the church. Isn’t it true that many congregations consist largely of females?
Yeah it is. I have a theory about why that is though. Basically it’s that in the past women worked 24 hours a day, whereas men worked more like 12, and did little when they got home. Church etc was the only time they got a break and one of the few times they got to meet up with others. Men could do it every day at work, the pub etc.
And women simply didn’t have time to think or read for themselves, and had less education, which is a strong indicator for losing religion.
Yes, excellent thoughts!
And I think we’ve talked before about the possibility that women were especially drawn to the notion of “just rewards” in the afterlife, since their present lives were so miserable.
Yeah we have. I think that’s a big one too, in some communities more than others of course.
My guess is that many priests and higher ups are more concerned with losing the potential wage-earners that the stay-at-home moms bring, rather than the stay-at-home moms. The anti-BC and anti-abortion rules are intended to keep Catholic moms producing male catholic children that will then contribute financially to the church. IOW, they are even more misogynistic than you make them out to be, because even as they seek to keep women in the church, they do so only because they see women as a means to an end, not valuable for themselves.
It has always been about bums in seats.
This is how you get new recruits.
It is not a coincidence that most religions are pro-natal. They need to be in order to survive.
I agree! Women are the breeding stock to produce more income providers.
That is encouraging news.
And it seems that in Ireland (Eire or Northern) public opinion is well ahead of the legislation. Unfortunately politicians are always (on average) politically conservative and reactionary.
cr