“Free, safe and legal.” That was the slogan for the Abortion Rights Campaign launched by Irish women in 2012 that led to a historic, landslide vote Friday to liberalize the country’s highly restrictive abortion laws. Two-thirds of those who went to the polls voted yes on a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment of Ireland’s constitution, which was added in 1983 to give equal rights to a woman and an unborn child. By voting yes, supporters also backed legislation, which must still be introduced, to allow women to seek an abortion during the first 12 weeks of their pregnancy. The referendum was sparked, in part, by the high-profile death of Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar, who suffered a miscarriage in an Irish hospital in 2012. Doctors refused her repeated requests for an abortion, because they could detect a fetal heartbeat, and she contracted a fatal infection.
In a historic referendum, Irish voters have repealed one of the world’s more restrictive abortion bans. The “yes” vote won 66 percent in Friday’s referendum, which deals a blow to Ireland’s conservative Catholic Church and repeals the 1983 measure that banned abortion under almost all circumstances. Friday’s vote will not change abortion access in British-ruled Northern Ireland, where 19th century laws barring the procedure remain in place.
PRIME MINISTER LEO VARADKAR: Today is a historic day for Ireland. A quiet revolution has taken place, and today is a great act of democracy. A hundred years since women gained the right to vote, today we, as a people, have spoken, and we say that we trust women and respect women to make their own decisions and their own choices. … For me, it’s also a day when we say, “No more”—no more to doctors telling their patients that there’s nothing can be done for them in their own country; no more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea; no more stigma, as the veil of secrecy is lifted; and no more isolation, as the burden of shame is gone.
— source democracynow.org