AMENDMENT:INTERNAL OPPOSITION to an anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution was expressed at an early stage of the new government led by Garret FitzGerald in 1981.
This came about despite the fact the incoming taoiseach had already committed to such a change in the election of June that year.
A four-page letter outlining attorney general Peter Sutherland’s objections to an anti-abortion amendment is contained in files just released from the Department of the Taoiseach.
In a letter to the taoiseach dated August 28th, 1981, less than two months after the new government took office, the attorney general asserted that the right to life, before and after birth, was already implicit in Bunreacht na hÉireann.
“The interpretation of the Constitution by the courts has led to a situation where a large number of personal rights have been held to be implicit in the Constitution which are not specifically referred to there,” he writes.
These included: the right to bodily integrity; the right to have access and recourse to the courts to litigate; the right to defend one’s good name by appropriate means; the right to justice and fair procedures; and the right to life.
In his opinion “the right to life has been clearly enunciated by the courts and that, in the circumstances, the constitutional amendment is unnecessary”.
This wording was approved by referendum in September 1983, although Sutherland opposed the formulation as flawed and unclear.
