Before 1983 abortion was illegal under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, an old British Act remaining in force following independence.
In the early 1980s there was a vigorous campaign from the Pro-Life Campaign and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child to have put into the Constitution an amendment prohibiting abortion. They argued that it was possible abortion could some day be permitted through judicial interpretation of the Constitution.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael gave commitments they would support such an amendment. The Labour Party, and most of the Protestant churches, opposed the referendum on the grounds that it was unnecessary.
1983: A ailFine Gael-Labour Coalition government was in power when the anti-abortion amendment was put to referendum. It said: "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 that right." In the referendum the amendment was adopted by a two-to-one majority.
1986: The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child obtained an injunction against two pregnancy counselling groups stopping them from giving information on abortion services available in other countries. In 1988, this was upheld by the Supreme Court.
1992: The two organisations, Open Door Counselling and the Dublin Well Woman Centre, appealed successfully to the European Court at Strasbourg under the European Convention of Human Rights. It found the State had infringed the freedom of expression right. That year a 14year-old girl, who became known as X, became pregnant as a result of rape. Both she and her parents wanted her to travel abroad for an abortion. While they were abroad, an injunction was secured by the Attorney General. On learning of the injunction, they returned.
The injunction was appealed to the Supreme Court. A majority of the court held that if there was a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother, and this could be averted only by the termination of her pregnancy, then abortion was lawful. Evidence was heard that the girl was suicidal as a result of the rape and the pregnancy, and the court agreed that this constituted a "real and substantial risk" to her life.
However, the court also found that if there was no such threat to her life, the constitutional right to travel could be restrained if it was for the purpose of obtaining an abortion. This judgment, and the Strasbourg judgment, gave rise to three further constitutional amendments, proposed by the Fianna Fail-led government.
The first sought to limit the protection of the right to life of the mother to medical risk other than suicide. It was opposed both by those in the anti-abortion lobby, which did not accept that abortion could ever be the answer to a life-threatening medical condition, and by those favouring a more liberal response to the issue. It was defeated.
The second stated that the existing amendment did not limit the right to travel while the third allowed the publication of information on abortion services abroad. Both were passed.
This left the Supreme Court ruling in the X case, which interpreted the anti-abortion amendment, as the law on the issue of abortion. It meant that if a pregnant woman or girl was suicidal as a result of her pregnancy, she could not only travel for an abortion, she could legally seek one in the State.
However, in practice this was, and remains, prohibited by the Medical Council's ethical guidelines, which govern the practice of doctors and prohibit abortion, except as the by-product of "standard medical treatment of the mother."
1997: The principles established by the X case were upheld by the High Court when a 13-year-old girl in the care of the Eastern Health Board, pregnant as a result of rape and threatening suicide, was allowed to travel abroad for an abortion.