In May 2018, the Irish electorate voted to remove from the Constitution one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the world. This referendum followed 35 years of legal cases, human rights advocacy, feminist activism and governmental and parliamentary processes. The reframing of abortion as an issue of women's health rather than foetal rights was crucial to the success of law reform efforts. The new law, enacted in 2018, provides for access to abortion on a woman's request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and in situations of risk to the life or of serious harm to the health of the pregnant woman and fatal foetal anomaly thereafter. Abortion is now broadly accessible in Ireland, however continued advocacy is needed to ensure the state meets international human rights standards and that access to abortion care and abortion rights is fully secured into the law.
The provision of the Irish Constitution that guarantees "the unborn" a right to life equal to that of a pregnant woman has consequences for access to abortion and the care of women in pregnancy generally. Long-awaited legislation to give effect to the narrow constitutional right to abortion was enacted into law in 2013. In 2014, a guidance document for health professionals' implementation of the legislation was published. However, the legislation and guidance document fall far short of international human rights bodies' recommendations: they fail to deliver effective procedural rights to all of the women eligible for lawful abortion within the state and create new legal barriers to women's reproductive rights. At the same time, cases continue to highlight that the Irish Constitution imposes an unethical and rights-violating legal regime in non-abortion-related contexts. Recent developments suggest that both the failure to put guidelines in place and the development of guidelines that are not centered on women or based on rights further reduce women's access to rights and set unacceptable limitations on women's reproductive autonomy. Nevertheless, public and parliamentary scrutiny of cases involving Ireland's abortion laws is increasingly focusing on the need for reform.
Abortion in early pregnancy became available in Ireland in January 2019, following decades of campaigning by activists and civil society organizations for the repeal of the country's constitutional abortion ban. 1 The new law-the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018-provides for access to abortion on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, dated from the last menstrual period (LMP). 2 Early abortion care initially involved two face-to-face visits with a medical practitioner, separated by a 3-day mandatory waiting period.The Model of Care for early abortion was designed around the provision of early medical abortion (EMA) which involves the use of two medications-mifepristone, followed 24-48 hours later by misoprostol.EMA up to 9 weeks of pregnancy is provided by community healthcare providers (general practitioners (GPs), and specialist sexual and reproductive healthcare providers, such as the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA)), through a combination of
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