Thanks so so much for highligting the issue of reproductive rights in Ireland. I'm from Northern Ireland, the only country that forms the UK to not have legalised abortion. My local family planning clinic has regular aggressive protesters outissde, and it breaks my heart to see young girls making a really hard decision be heckled like this. My own high school made everyone go to anti-choice events, showing teenagers the full anti-abortion gore fest videos. So, thanks for mentioning this, hopefully we can speak out for the women who have hard decisions made harder than they need to be.

Yes, thanks for posting this. I'm in the U.S., and we don't hear enough here about state of women's rights in Ireland.

Abortion in Ireland has always been a contentious issue – which came to a head around 1992 when the famous, or rather, infamous “X Case� happened. This was a case in which a 14-year-old girl was raped by her father’s friend, was made pregnant, and, understandably wanted an abortion.

The crux was that she and her family also wanted to use the DNA from the foetus to prosecute the ‘family friend’. The girl was underage, so at least he was good for unlawful carnal knowledge of a minor. Seeing as in 1983 there was a constitutional prohibition of abortion (passed by referendum), using evidence from an aborted foetus would have been legally controversial, to say the least.

As the girl then started to threaten to commit suicide if she couldn’t abort, she was held by the Irish authorities, thus opening the possibility of the prohibition from travelling for ALL pregnant Irish women, as they might, god forbid, leave Ireland for the purpose of availing of a perfectly legal service in another EU country.

At this point it is worth pointing out that (British) Cosmopolitan arrived in Ireland censured – the pages with ads for women’s health centres was not included as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child had taken the issued to court and the material was deemed to be against the spirit of the constitutional prohibition of Section 40.3.3..

In 1993 we had another referendum, to see if we would 1) approve the possibility of having legal abortions in Ireland; 2) recognise the right to travel of all pregnant women and 3) recognise our right to receive information. The first point was rejected, but the last two were passed, thus killing the need for the Abortion Helpline’s number to be written on the doors of public toilets and handed out in Students’ Unions.

On a personal level, I find the whole hypocrisy about abortion rather depressing. As if the women in this unfortunate situation don’t have enough to deal with.

Abortion in Ireland has always been a contentious issue – which came to a head around 1992 when the famous, or rather, infamous “X Case� happened. This was a case in which a 14-year-old girl was raped by her father’s friend, was made pregnant, and, understandably wanted an abortion.

The crux was that she and her family also wanted to use the DNA from the foetus to prosecute the ‘family friend’. The girl was underage, so at least he was good for unlawful carnal knowledge of a minor. Seeing as in 1983 there was a constitutional prohibition of abortion (passed by referendum), using evidence from an aborted foetus would have been legally controversial, to say the least.

As the girl then started to threaten to commit suicide if she couldn’t abort, she was held by the Irish authorities, thus opening the possibility of the prohibition from travelling for ALL pregnant Irish women, as they might, god forbid, leave Ireland for the purpose of availing of a perfectly legal service in another EU country.

At this point it is worth pointing out that (British) Cosmopolitan arrived in Ireland censured – the pages with ads for women’s health centres was not included as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child had taken the issued to court and the material was deemed to be against the spirit of the constitutional prohibition of Section 40.3.3..

In 1993 we had another referendum, to see if we would 1) approve the possibility of having legal abortions in Ireland; 2) recognise the right to travel of all pregnant women and 3) recognise our right to receive information. The first point was rejected, but the last two were passed, thus killing the need for the Abortion Helpline’s number to be written on the doors of public toilets and handed out in Students’ Unions.

On a personal level, I find the whole hypocrisy about abortion rather depressing. As if the women in this unfortunate situation don’t have enough to deal with.

It's great to hear something about Ireland. Yeah, it's pretty appalling that people have to travel to England for abortions here: I suppose in effect it means you can get a safe one if you have the money to travel and not if you don't.

My mother told me about those Cosmo editions: they literally had the ads cut out. Isn't that incredible? (I think she said it was the same with Spare Rib.)

For a society which is in someways so liberal, we do have some truly appalling problems with many questions of women's and children's rights.

I think it's high time for a new referendum on the issue, and would hope to see it passed this time 'round.

However, given that the latest fun trend here is to show anti-choice ads at the cinema before a movie, it's unlikely to be the easy slamdunk sane people could wish for.

Whatever happened I will never let abortion to be legalized anywhere in the world. I don’t think abortion will be the answer in all our problems whether it is economy issues, health or any-related issues. If you want don’t do things that will result to pregnancy. Gee, what kind of people who wants to legalized this abortion? In relation to latest Ireland issues, They has been one of the hardest hit countries in the downturn of the world economy. It is said that when Ireland gained its independence, the Irish Republic emerged as a country behind the curve, but over the next 50 years they become the richest nations of Europe. The Celtic Tiger boomed for years until recently, as the Anglo Irish Bank was nationalized amid fears of a collapse. But because of this recession Irish many turned to cab driving to sustain the needs of its people. They never granted any no fax cash advance as well as short-term loan. Radical budgets cuts appear in the prospect, as there may not be a large enough short-term loan for Ireland to keep things as they were. Now all we can do is to try our very best to survive and be optimistic because in due time I know we can make it. But please don’t ever think of abortion!