AbortionIreland and of Europe
01 May 1992
The future of the Maastricht Treaty is in question following the response of the Irish Attorney General and judiciary to the rape of a 14-year-old Dublin girl. The Treaty has to be ratified by all EC member states before it becomes law and in the case of Ireland this requires a referendum.
The referendum, now scheduled for the 18th of June, could result in a "no" vote because both sides in the abortion debate fear that the Treaty will institutionalize a position which neither wants. The Church fears abortion will become easier because of EC guarantees of freedom of information and travel, while women's groups are worried that the Treaty will merely confirm the very limiting domestic legal judgements made following the rape. In addition, there is a sizeable lobby concerned that the Maastricht Treaty will diminish Irish sovereignty, in particular compromising Ireland's traditional neutrality with regard to NATO and other military alliances.
When the Treaty was finalized in December 1991, the Irish government asked for a special clause recognising Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion. Abortion has always been illegal in Ireland under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, but Catholic Church based pressure groups and the Church hierarchy itself sought to strengthen the anti abortion position through an amendment to the written constitution.
The 1983 "Pro-Life referendum" secured an amendment which declares that "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and as far as is practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." During the extremely bitter and divisive campaign on the Pro-Life referendum, opponents warned that the amendment would lead to the closure of advice and counselling services, and even to individual women being stopped from boarding boats or having to prove they weren't pregnant before getting on planes to London. Indeed, having secured the amendment, the anti-abortion groups have initiated a series of court cases. These have resulted in the closure of two women's health clinics, the removal of books on women's health (such as Our Bodies Ourselves) from the shelves of public libraries, and the printing of special editions of British women's magazines excluding advertisements which might provide information to those seeking abortions. As the Observer and Irish Times columnist Mary Holland put it, "information about abortion is now only available through the kind of underground network that existed in Britain before 1967."
In February, the parents of the rape victim went to the police to report the crime. They also said they were taking their daughter to England for an abortion. Apparently, the police then contacted the DPP's office to arrange for the British authorities to sample the foetal tissue for DNA testing. This, they assumed, would secure the conviction of the culprit. On hearing the parents' intentions, the Attorney General applied for and was granted an injunction preventing the parents from taking their daughter to England, even though they were already there. Fearing prosecution for contempt, the parents returned.
The High Court ruled that, although the rape victim had been sexually abused for some two years by an "evil and depraved man", and was contemplating suicide, the threat to the life of the unborn was overriding. The case then went to the Supreme Court. Here the application of EC law on freedom of movement, as well as the interpretation of domestic law was put to the test. In a three-to-two majority ruling, domestic law on the right to life of the unborn was judged to take precedence over the right to freedom of movement between EC member states. Nevertheless, on an interpretation of the constitution, the Supreme Court ruled that the rape victim could travel to England for an abortion because the threat to her life was more important than the life