A long-awaited referendum on abortion is due this May, which will offer citizens the chance to repeal the constitution’s eighth amendment and liberalize Ireland’s strict legislation. The country’s abortion laws are among the harshest in the European Union and have been denounced as ‘cruel and inhumane’ by the UN’s human rights committee.
Abortion has been illegal since the republic was established in 1919, but the ‘right to life of the unborn’ was only enshrined in the constitution when the eighth amendment was passed in 1983. Even in clear-cut situations where continuing pregnancy places the mother’s life in immediate danger, abortion is not readily offered.
