ABORTION HAS moved centre stage as an election issue following yesterday’s ruling by a European court that the Irish State failed to implement existing rights to lawful abortion where a mother’s life is at risk.
The Government said it would consider carefully the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, which found that the State violated the rights of a woman with cancer who was unable to establish whether she qualified for a lawful abortion here. In a statement, it said it would consider what steps are required to implement the decision.
Minister for Health Mary Harney accepted that legislation would be needed to implement the court’s decision but indicated this was unlikely to happen before the next election, which is likely in the spring.
Labour called for legislation and said the issue could no longer be dodged. However, its potential coalition partners in the next government, Fine Gael, said only that it would give careful and detailed consideration to the implications of the ruling and would consider what steps needed to be taken.
Fine Gael did not issue a statement yesterday but a spokesman said its position had been arrived at following consultation between the leader, Enda Kenny, health spokesman Dr James Reilly and justice spokesman Alan Shatter.
During the 1997 general election campaign, Mr Kenny gave a commitment to the Irish Catholic newspaper that if he became taoiseach, he would not legislate for the 1992 X case, which found that abortion was legal where the life, as opposed to the health, of a mother was at risk.
A Labour spokesman said it would place legislation on the issue “on the table” in negotiations for any future government but would not insist on it as a “deal breaker”. He pointed out that as far back as 1992, the programme for government of the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition contained a commitment, not fulfilled, for legislation on the X case.
Pro-choice groups responded to the ruling by saying the State had no choice other than to legislate for abortion. The Catholic Primate, Cardinal Seán Brady, said the ruling raised profound moral and legal issues which require careful analysis.
“Today’s judgment leaves future policy in Ireland on protecting the lives of unborn children in the hands of the Irish people and does not oblige Ireland to introduce legislation authorising abortion,” he said.
The direct destruction of an innocent human life could never be justified, however difficult the circumstances, he said. “We are always obliged to act with respect for the inherent right to life of both the mother and the unborn child in the mother’s womb.”
In putting abortion back on the agenda, the ruling is likely to put pressure on the Government to introduce detailed legislation on access to lawful abortions. Successive governments have failed to introduce such legislation since the X case ruling.
In the current case, the woman – known only as “C” – had a rare form of cancer and feared it would relapse when she became unintentionally pregnant. However, the woman said she was unable to find a doctor willing to make a determination as to whether her life would be at risk if she continued to term. The court ruled that neither medical nor litigation options constituted “effective or accessible procedures” for the woman to establish a lawful abortion. The law which provides serious criminal sanctions for women or doctors involved in illegal abortions had a “chilling effect” on medical practitioners.