Choice Ireland

KITTY HOLLAND

A PRIVATE Members’ Bill which would provide for limited access to abortion will be introduced in the Dáil next week.

The Bill, to make abortion legal where there is a “real and substantial risk to the life” of the pregnant woman, will be introduced by Socialist Party TD Clare Daly in private members’ time and will be voted on in the House on April 19th.

Over 60 organisations and individuals, including seven TDs, two Senators, trade unions, academics and doctors have called for “immediate legislation in line with the ‘X’ case”.

The move has been criticised by the anti-abortion Pro Life Campaign which accused the sponsors of the Dáil abortion motion of “wilfully ignoring the negative effects of abortion for women”.

The “Action on X Alliance” yesterday gave a press briefing to mark the 20th anniversary of the High Court injunction that barred a 14-year old girl from travelling to Britain for an abortion. Known as “X”, she had been raped.

Two days later, amid a public outpouring of sympathy for the girl and anger at the injunction, the Supreme Court ruled abortion was legal where there was a real and substantial threat to the life of the pregnant woman or girl, including suicide.

In the end, the girl at the centre of the case miscarried.

Patrick Nulty TD (Labour) said it was “shameful” that 20 years after the Supreme Court gave its ruling and after two referendums on the issue, six successive Governments had “failed to act”.

Orla O’Connor, acting chief executive of the National Women’s Council, described the inaction of governments on “X” as a “violation of women’s rights – that they are forced to travel to Britain, over 4,000 every year, to end their pregnancies”. She said the situation for poor women with crisis pregnancies was “all the more horrific” as “very often they simply don’t have the means to travel”.

The alliance will hold a public meeting in the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, on Tuesday at 7pm.