Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group
Submission to the Convention on the Irish Constitution
For a referendum to repeal Article 40.3.3 of the
Constitution
About Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group
1. Cork Women's Right To Choose is a long-standing
single-issue group; a loose alliance of women and men who believe that a woman
has the right to control her fertility. We believe that abortion should be
treated as a health issue and not as a criminal law matter. We campaign for
full safe and legal access to abortion and reproductive health services for all
women in Ireland regardless of income, age, sexuality, race, ability,
geography, immigration status, or culture. We are a voluntary, not-for-profit
lobby and direct action organisation.
Executive summary
2. Under the Resolution of the Houses of the Oireachtas of
July, 2012, the Constitutional Convention is required to examine a range of
issues and make other recommendations as it sees fit. Cork Women’s Right to
Choose Group asks the Constitutional Convention to include consideration of
Article 40.3.3 of Bunreacht na hÉireann in its deliberations, and to then
recommend there be a referendum to remove this article from the Constitution
3. We make this request on the basis that the Constitution
should reflect the reality of the lives of Irish citizens – and this Article
manifestly does not.
The facts
4. At least 150,000 women have been forced to travel to the
UK for an abortion since the Eighth Amendment was passed in 1983. In the past
few years the thousands who still travel abroad have been joined by hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of women who are procuring the RU 486 “abortion pill” over
the internet. They are then self-administering at home without suitable medical
supervision and thereby putting their health in danger.
5. Alongside this social reality that somewhere between 10
to 15% of women in Ireland today have had an abortion, opinion polls in recent
years consistently show a significant majority of people living in the Republic
favour an extension of abortion rights. This parallels the latest research into
the opinions of GPs and medical students which also shows a clear majority in
favour of extending abortion rights.
6. These figures highlight the clear social need for this
generally straight-forward medical procedure to be made freely available in
Ireland.
For social justice
7. Migrant women, women with little or no income, women with
disabilities or who are unable to travel for whatever reason, women facing a
pregnancy with a medical diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality have all
suffered disproportionately over the past three decades.
8. The constraints of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution led
to the new legislation on abortion rights, the Protection of Life During
Pregnancy Act 2013, prohibiting abortion in cases of rape, incest, inevitable
miscarriage and fatal foetal abnormality, while women or girls who are suicidal
as a result of unwanted pregnancy will most likely travel abroad rather than
seek an abortion here under its terms. This Constitutional straightjacket
ignores the needs of women who decide that having an abortion is in their best
interest, and in the form of the new Act criminalises women and those who
support them, including their doctors, if they access abortion here in Ireland.
9. As Alan Shatter's observed in the Dáil on 27th November
2012:
“There is no impediment to men seeking and obtaining any
required medical intervention to protect not only their lives but also their
health and quality of life ... It can truly be said that the right of pregnant
women to have their health protected is, under our constitutional framework, a
qualified right ... This is a republic in which we proclaim the equality of all
our citizens but the reality is that some citizens are more equal than others.”
Conclusion
10. Women’s rights should be reinforced and not qualified or
restricted by the Constitution. It is time women in Ireland were treated as
valued individuals with full and equal human rights. Termination of pregnancy
should therefore be treated as a women’s health matter and not a criminal or
constitutional one. Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group want to see a legal
framework that really meets women’s needs and reflects the importance of
women’s rights by providing for free and safe abortion on this island available
for all women who require it.
11. We therefore call on the Constitutional Convention to
stand with the majority of the Irish population who support an extension to
abortion rights within the State by recommending there be a referendum to
remove Article 40.3.3.
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