A former government minister once told me that Irish people were pathologically incapable of having a reasoned debate on the issue of abortion. I think that’s no longer true. People are eager to have a frank and honest debate and we need to let that happen.
Some people will oppose abortion an all circumstances, often based on an unshakable belief that human life begins at the point of conception. This is a principled position and I respect it as such.
But the deeply held convictions of any person, or group of people, cannot be forced upon others who disagree with them in a way that violates their human rights.
We cannot accept a position where a woman or girl who chooses to have an abortion because of a risk to her health, or because she has been raped, or because of a severe or fatal foetal impairment, could be sent to prison for 14 years. I simply cannot accept that this is right.
Nor, it appears, do 87 per cent of people in Ireland as established in the Red C opinion poll Amnesty International published yesterday. And two-thirds say the Government should fully decriminalise abortion.
It is a violation of the human rights of women and girls to deny them access to safe and legal abortion in such circumstances. That is a fact now well established in international human rights law, and it is also the view of 70 per cent of people in Ireland as discovered by our poll.
On the question of access to abortion in such circumstances, people in Ireland are emphatic – 81 per cent of people believe that women and girls should have safe and legal access abortion in Ireland beyond the scope as currently allowed in law.
Suffering
Our laws are very much out of step with public opinion on this issue. And as recent cases have made horribly clear, they are causing terrible suffering to women and girls and their families.
Our laws meant that a teenage asylum seeker, pregnant as a result of repeated rapes in a war zone, was forced to continue with her pregnancy against her express wish to have it terminated.
Our laws meant that a family was forced to go to court to allow its clinically dead daughter die with dignity.
Our laws mean that every day at least 10 women and girls travel to England to access abortion there.
Our laws and the eighth amendment to the Constitution are not stopping women living in Ireland from having abortions but they are criminalising them and forcing them into temporary exile to access an essential healthcare service at a time when they are especially vulnerable.
Compassionate debate
It is beyond time for a reasonable, respectful and compassionate debate on this issue, for a debate that rises above the usual vitriol. A narrow and polarised discussion which silences the majority view serves no one. Those who oppose abortion must be prepared honestly and respectfully to debate the issues here in Ireland.
They must not simply continue to attack those who call for change. They must not misrepresent women’s human right to abortion as something Amnesty invented.
They must not suggest that international human rights law demands access to abortion where the foetus has a disability – severe and fatal impairment is a serious medical condition, not a disability.
They must stop distorting what happens in other countries to suit their ends here.
For instance, the UK criminal trial of three medical professionals in the case of a woman who died after an abortion – if that case illustrates anything it is that you do not need a specific abortion offence to prosecute health professionals for breaching medical guidelines and causing harm.
It is clear that public opinion supports progressive change to our laws on abortion. Public opinion is also more nuanced that many might imagine.
For example, only 31 per cent of those opposed to abortion in all circumstances, even when a woman’s life is at risk, believe a 14-year prison sentence is a reasonable penalty for having an abortion.
Even the majority of those most opposed to abortion think our laws are too harsh.
No woman, and no doctor, should fear a possible 14-year jail term in arriving at the best possible decision in any individual case. But they do and will continue to do so until we repeal the eighth amendment and introduce laws that finally and fully respect the human rights of women and girls in Ireland.
Colm O’Gorman is executive director of Amnesty International Ireland