News last week of the government's intention to liberalize one of Ireland's highly restrictive anti-abortion laws has renewed national debate on abortion in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Health Minister Brendan Howlin said the law that prohibits the distribution of information about abortion clinics in other countries would be amended in legislation to be considered by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Albert Reynolds this week.After expected approval by the Cabinet, the measure is to be debated in the Parliament.
Opponents outside Parliament began immediately to lobby the 166-member body to defeat the proposed amendment. Advocates of liberalization fought back with arguments for approval, and impassioned views came from people on call-in radio programs.
The Roman Catholic Church has not responded to the government's move but is expected to do so when the debate opens in Parliament, possibly this week.
The government has not denied reports that the proposed new law will permit doctors, nurses and social workers to give information as long as they do not try to persuade women to have abortions.
"To give names and addresses and hard information medicalizes the issue, when in fact it's not really a medical issue," said Ciaran Craven, an official of the Pro-Life Campaign. "It opens discussion as if abortion, which is really the killing of an unborn life, is in some way a legitimate option."
But Rachel Martin, an official of the Well Woman Center, which counsels 45,000 women a year in Dublin on pregnancy, rape, battery and other matters, said the government's action was "long overdue and makes clear that information should be legally provided."
Abortion is perhaps the most emotional issue in Ireland, where 95 percent of the 3.5 million people are Catholics, where divorce is constitutionally prohibited, and where the legal distribution of condoms is restrictive by European standards.
In 1992, a movement stepped up efforts to liberalize the laws, which not only prohibit abortion in virtually all cases here but also ban the distribution of information on services available in other countries and on travel abroad for abortions. An estimated minimum of 5,000 Irish women travel annually for abortions in Britain.
The movement gained momentum from a case in which a 14-year-old was forbidden to travel to Britain for an abortion after she said she had been raped by the father of a friend. The case attracted international attention, and eventually the Supreme Court ruled that she had the right to travel for the operation, and she did.
In November 1992, Irish voters in a national referendum approved two of the government's three proposals for liberalization, the right to travel and the right to receive information. But a proposal to broaden the grounds for legal abortions to be performed in Ireland was defeated.