UN: Irish abortion ban cruel, discriminatory to women

The 29-page report from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Committee accepted a complaint filed by Amanda Mellet, a Dublin woman who was denied a 2011 abortion in Ireland after doctors informed her that her fetus had a heart defect and could not survive outside the womb.

Ireland permits abortions only in cases where the woman’s own life is endangered by continued pregnancy. Its ban on abortion in all other circumstances requires women to carry a physiologically doomed fetus until birth or its death in the womb. 

The only other option is to travel abroad for abortions, usually to England, where thousands of Irish citizens have abortions annually.

The UN Human Rights Committee, constituting experts from 17 nations led by Fabian Salvioli of Argentina, found that Ireland’s abortion law violates the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and called for widespread reform.

The panel wields no power to compel change from Ireland, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation that maintains the strictest laws on abortion in the 28-nation EU. 

Ireland’s government and Catholic Church leaders declined to comment on the report, which seeks a formal Irish government response within six months. In Dublin, Mellet said she hoped the government would find “the courage to make necessary changes in law.”