Irish law change would ban abortion

Press, 11 March 1983, Page 17

Irish law change would ban abortion

From

Selwyn Parker

in Dublin

It is only a 43-word sentence but it will change Ireland's constitution, has already angered the Protestant churches, and will embarrass Prime Minister Garret Fitzgerald. Moreover. doctors are nervous of it. lawyers deeply worried by it. and Northern Ireland's Unionist politicians scoff at it. The same sentence, most commentators agree, will seriously set back the good relations of the Republic with Northern Ireland. It is the wording of an antiabortion amendment to Ireland’s constitution, an amendment which will effectively ban abortion for ever in the overwhelmingly Catholic Republic. And this week Ireland’s Dail (Parliament) continued what promises to be a long, embarrassing. bitter debate. Already the omens are bad. Deputy Prime Minister Dick Spring, leader of the Labour partners in the coalition Government, has announced that he will vote against the amendment which will, of course, be introduced by his own Government. Other senior Labour colleagues, including two Cabinet ministers, have promised to do the same, and a lot of backbenchers are likely to join them. “It’s a bad law,” says Mr Spring, a barrister, explaining his objection. But the immediate embarrassment is Mr Fitzgerald’s. The Prime Minister, who has promised a constitutional reform that would remove the sectarian elements from the ' 214-page Irish constitution (which, among other things “recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens”), will now be seen to write in yet another sectarian element. For the Protestant churches are universally, and in some cases,

bitterly opposed to the proposed amendment.

It is not that the pro-abortion lobby in Ireland is a strong one. Indeed, it is miniscule and insignificant. Even the Protestant churches, arguing that they are as "pro-life" as anybody, oppose abortion in principle, but they believe it should be available as a fallback, especially in cases of rape, incest, the risk of encephalic birth, or when the birth may cause the mother severe emotional distress (if, for instance, she already has a large family and cannot cope with another child). But under the amendment the ban on abortion would be total. The nub of the Protestant churches’ argument is this: there is already a law banning abortion so why write a special clause into the constitution which will antagonise the non-Catholic community? Mr Fitzgerald, who is genuinely concerned to break down sectarian barriers between South and North, is chiefly embarrassed because the amendment was introduced to Parliament by the previous Government and, with an election imminent, he was unwilling to risk political unpopularity by objecting even to the wording. The amendment was proposed by a small, vigorous and vocal group of Catholic mothers known as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (S.P.U.C.) who intensely lobbied the former government of Charles Haughey. Some six months in the shaping, the 43 words seem quite inadequate, according to the Director of Public Prosections, who is worried about the State’s obligation to enforce the amendment under law, and to the new Attorney-General who has

issued a strongly-worded statement repudiating it. Other lawyers describe it as a "legal minefield" and a "Pandora's Box." They argue that it will be contested endlessly in the High Court, and may even — astonishingly — actually end up being stood on its head by adroit opposition groups. In other words, it could actually promote abortion. The amendment reads: “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 and vindicate that right." Doctors worry that even such contraceptive devices as the I.U.D. and the pill may become illegal under the constitution because, strictly interpreted, they are abortifacient — they actually promote abortion. “What I’m worried about,” joked one Dublin mother of three, "is that my doctor may say he is not allowed to take out my I.U.D. It will be there for the rest of my life." Ireland’s growing feminist movement deplores the amendment, claiming that it reflects what they see as the patronising tone of the constitution itself. Indeed, the constitution defines the role of women in distinctly old-fashioned terms. The State must "endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home." Meanwhile, the debate has done nothing to stop Irish women seeking abortions in Britain. According to British social workers, in the last few years at least 30,000 Irish women have had abortions in the U.K. where terminations of pregnancy are legal under certain circumstances.