Irish government rejects UN findings in abortion rights

Irish Government accepts 62 recommendations, rejects six on abortion rights

JORDANA KOZUPSKY,

IrishCentral.com Intern

Published Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 8:03 AM

Updated Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 10:32 AM

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Justice Minister Alan Shatter

Photo by PA

The Irish Government has rejected six recommendations by the UN Human Rights Council to legalize or partially legalize abortion, according to the Irish Times.

Out of a total of 126 recommendations, the Government accepted 62 and claimed that they would “study carefully” 49 more before the next Human Rights council session in March, 2012.

These recommendations to Ireland were "based on the first review of Ireland’s record under the UN’s Universal Periodic Review, a process that culminated in a hearing involving Minister for Justice Alan Shatter in Geneva last week," the article reported.

These 49 recommendations addressed controversial issues such as conditions in prisons, gender equality, mental health, torture prevention, and children's rights.

Just under half of the 15 recommendations the Government rejected were on the topic of abortion. These included a plea from Slovenia to allow for abortion "at least when pregnancy poses a risk to the health of the pregnant woman" and for the country to implement the judgement made by the European Court of Human Rights on the A, B, and C v Ireland case.

The current law in Ireland regarding abortion holds that abortion is illegal, except where there is a substantial risk to the life of the mother, including the risk of suicide. In those cases, abortion may be legal, but this rule is only applied after the 28th week of pregnancy. However, the 2010 landmark decision that held that Ireland had violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which confirms the right for respect with regard to one's privacy, without any interference by a public authority figure. The decision held that, although abortion is illegal in Ireland, it was uncertain whether or not the third participant, C, could have had access to an abortion if she feared her life was in danger; that is, there was no information available to her at the time where she could simply learn her rights in such a situation.

Justice Shatter reported that an "expert group" was to be appointed by the Government next month in order to implement the ruling in the historical civil rights case in an "adequate and comprehensive" way.
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eiriamach | Oct 14, 2011, 01:54 PM EDT

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that, among other atrocities, would deny women who are in the throes of miscarriage medical attention in a hospital emergency room if the medical procedure would result in loss of the fetus. Without medical treatment, a woman in that situation can bleed to death. Even when Nature itself brings about the abortion ('miscarriage' is a spontaneously occurring, rather than an induced, abortion), these misogynist legislators would rather see a woman die than any medical personnel assist in saving her life. This bill would make illegal the life-saving surgery for which Sister of Mercy Margaret McBride was excommunicated by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix, Arizona diocese when she decided to allow an abortion to save a dying women's life. And for this kind of "law," homo sapiens climbed down from the forests and out of the caves and built civilized societies with churches to safeguard our "morality"? When a fetus is dying, prompt medical attention can save the pregnant woman, but apparently, anti-abortionists would rather use the tragedy of miscarriage or a break-down in maternal health as a way of killing the woman along with her failed pregnancy. This murderous outcome of anti-choice campaigns makes of mockery of the phrase "pro-life."

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Gearoid4 | Oct 13, 2011, 08:44 PM EDT

@Skulander, Ireland is one of the safest places in the world medically for women to have children. Could it be then that you are angling for abortion on demand, as the first line of argument for so called "pro-choice"(code word usually for pro-abortion) advocates like yourself, is that abortions will go underground if they are banned. I suppose you like abortions to be "safe" but it is not very safe for the child in the womb, is it?. Yeah it is all about control of your own body and to do what you like with it and damn the consequences. Women deserve better that that ok. The destruction of the child in the womb is one of the most unnatural acts that a woman can do as it goes totally against her selfless, maternal instincts.

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Skulander | Oct 13, 2011, 01:28 AM EDT

But I see that again, "pro-life" christo-fascists are only obsessed about fetal life. Because the lives of real, living and breathing women, they couldn't be too concerned about.

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Skulander | Oct 13, 2011, 01:26 AM EDT

Ireland continue to shamelessly put women's lives at risk. Ireland continues to deny women basic human rights. And yet it is GLOATING about this fact. It is GLOATING about the fact that it is enslaving women and causing them a tremendous amount of harm by denying them their rights. It's disgusting. BTW you anti-choicers out there: you ARE aware, are you, that 12 women a day, yes, A DAY, go to England to have an abortion? Banning abortions doesn't make them go away. It only pushes them underground. Look at Poland where there is a lucrative underground market for abortions. Controlling women, all in the name of "religion." Then again, that's the same religion which molested little boys and that contines to control women, their bodies, and deny them their reproductive rights. It's time to grow up and to enter into the 21st century. Women deserve better than this.

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Paradigm | Oct 12, 2011, 11:57 AM EDT

Good for Alan Shatter and Co. There are many Ulster Unionists who, as a result of sharing his principles, will feel somewhat greater affinity with their fellow islanders in the South.

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Gearoid4 | Oct 12, 2011, 10:45 AM EDT

I am very heartened to see that Ireland has rejected the 6 main points raised by the pro-abortion lobby in the European parliaments, that are being used as leverage to try to shunt the country into passing abortion on demand. Despite the friction that the Irish government has experienced with the Church, enough of the Christian heritage is present to ensure that such insidious, anti-life legislation will not get passage through either of Houses of the Oireachtas (National Parliament).

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