From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Irish Women Win a Small Victory
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 09:23:07 GMT

/** nfd.ifeatures: 28.4 **/
** Written  8:22 pm  Apr 12, 1992 by ihandler in cdp:nfd.ifeatures **

News Article / 960 Words

EEC Upholds Enlightenment over Theocracy
Irish Women Win
a Small Victory
over Abortion Law

By Sally Low and Tracy Sorensen
Insight Features 

   In a victory for women's rights, the Irish Supreme Court has overturned a
High Court injunction which prevented a pregnant 14-year-old rape victim
from travelling to Britain for an abortion. The ban would have made the young
woman, said to have been suicidal, a prisoner in the republic until the birth
of her child.

   The judgment, which confirmed the primacy of European law over the Irish
constitution, was probably more about Ireland's place in the new Europe than
about protecting women's rights. The ban was a direct challenge to the rights,
now under negotiation, of European Community citizens to travel freely
between EC states and to avail themselves of services that are legal in other
EC states.

   Comments from Euro MPs about the case reveal how far out of step Ireland
is considered to be on this issue. The European parliament's legal affairs
committee president, Willy Rothly, said of the case: "It is reminiscent of the
Middle Ages. In the EC we do not need fundamentalists."  Another member of
the committee said that "only states which have experienced the Age of
Enlightenment" should be members of the EC.

   The fact that the case has been posed as a victory for enlightenment over
theocracy puts feminists across Europe in a good position to argue against
remaining legal restrictions.

   In Germany, for example, women from the old East German state will, after a
transition period, be required to abide by the old West German anti-abortion
laws in the new united state. German women travelling to other countries for
their abortions could well ask why a more enlightened position is not being
taken by the EC's most powerful state.

   The Irish case unfolded after the 14-year-old and her parents went to the
Gardai, the Irish police, with the address of the abortion clinic they were
intending to go to in London. They thought a genetic sample taken from the
fetus could be used as evidence against the rapist.

   When the police went to the attorney-general's office with the information,
they were told that DNA tissue collected from the fetus would be inadmissible
as evidence (it would be the product of an illegal act), and that the
attorney-general would seek an injunction preventing travel. By this time, the
young woman and her family were already in London. They returned to
Ireland, without going through with the abortion, when notified of the
injunction.

   As women's groups pointed out, the lesson for Irish women in all this was:
If you are raped, don't go to the police.

   "Rapists 1, Women 0" and "Ireland allows men to procreate through rape"
read some of the placards carried by more than 5000 people who demonstrated
in Dublin on February 24. Among the crowd was Irish singer Sinead O'Connor,
who is not afraid to say publicly that she has had two abortions.

   Mary Lucey, a representative of the Society for the Protection of the
Unborn Child, maintained that the fetus's right to life "does not depend on
the circumstances surrounding our conception".

   Many observers point out that a case like this one was inevitable since a
constitutional amendment passed by referendum in 1983. The clause, supported
by 65% of votes cast (but with 50% abstaining), acknowledged the "right to
life of the unborn". The clause stated that this right should be respected "as
far as is practicable".

   While a clear definition of what is "practicable" is not embodied in the
clause, the Irish legal system has so far interpreted it in the strictest sense:
a total ban on the procedure in Ireland, and on information on how to obtain
it outside the country.

   While the Supreme Court's ruling clears the way for women to continue to
travel to London for abortions, it does nothing to reverse the existing legal
situation in Ireland itself.

   To get an abortion in Ireland today, women must have money to travel, and
information (illegally supplied) about where to go. With the 1983 referendum
victory under their belt, SPUC and Ireland's other anti-abortion campaigners
turned their attention to groups continuing to counsel women about their
pregnancies and provide information on abortions in Britain.

   These groups included women's health services and student unions.
Women's health services have been shut down after harassment and legal
action against them; their cases, and those of the student unions, have found
their way into European courts.

   English magazines have blank spots where advertisements for abortion
services or referral and counselling clinics would normally have appeared.
Pages in English telephone books which bear the numbers of such centers
have been removed.

   But while direct information about where to go to for an abortion is
considered illegal, there is less confidence about less direct information. 
Books, such as The New Our Bodies Ourselves have been removed from library
shelves, and the media and other public bodies have censored themselves
because they are unsure of what exactly is in breach of the constitution.

   As the Guardian Weekly (London) commented on February 23, it is "not
illegal to discuss abortion but it is illegal to help someone to have an
abortion. Where, then, does discussion move into help, legality fade into
illegality?"

   Ironically, it is estimated that the number of women travelling to London or
Liverpool for an abortion - about 8000 a year - has not diminished since 1983. 
Ruth Riddick, who worked for Open Line Counselling before it was forced to
close, claims that now fewer women seek counselling which might have led
them to decide against a termination. She pointed out that "the more
repressive the climate, the more you encourage recourse to abortion."

                            -- 30 --

   Sally Low and Tracy Sorensen write for Australia's Left Green Weekly,
where this article first appeared.

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