Ireland split on 'once-in-a-generation' abortion vote
http://www.dw.com/en/ireland-split-on-once-in-a-generation-abortion-vote/a-43893008
"This is a once-in-a-generation vote," according to Ireland's premier, Leo Varadkar. In a debate that divides Ireland so deeply down the middle, it is one of the few statements everyone can agree on.
The near-total ban on abortion currently in place was adopted as the "Eight Amendment" to the Irish constitution. This clause, passed in a contentious referendum, aimed to stop Ireland's courts following the lead of other countries and introducing abortion without the approval of the legislature. But what was intended as a complete ban on termination has not turned out this way: a landmark case in 1992, involving a suicidal teenage rape victim known only as "X," found that abortion could be permitted in cases where the pregnancy poses a "real and substantial" risk to the mother's life.
These are the "hard cases" cited by "Yes" campaigners as grounds to remove this 1983 prohibition — in their own words, to "Repeal the Eighth." "The Eighth amendment has not worked," Ireland's health minister, Simon Harris, told DW. Harris sponsored the parliamentary legislation to bring about Friday's vote. "If its aim was to stop abortions, by any measure it has failed. Every day nine Irish women go to the UK for a termination, and at least three Irish women take abortion pills illegally without any medical supervision. You need to be able to legislate and put a legal and clinical framework around such sensitive issues."
This is why Harris and his colleagues are proposing to repeal the Eighth Amendment, replacing it with a provision removing the constraints on parliament, so that lawmakers can pass whatever abortion law they see fit. Harris's proposals would include allowing abortion in cases of "fatal fetal abnormality," as well as where pregnancy poses a serious risk to a woman's health.