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December 16, 2010
European Court Rules on Ireland's Abortion Ban
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Irish abortion laws violated the rights of one of three women who sought abortions, according to the Associated Press.
Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion violates pregnant women's right to receive proper medical care in life-threatening cases, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday, harshly criticizing Ireland's long inaction on the issue.
The Strasbourg, France-based court ruled that a pregnant woman fighting cancer should have been allowed to get an abortion in Ireland in 2005 rather than being forced to go to England for the procedure.
The judgment put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health. But Catholic leaders and anti-abortion activists insisted that Ireland had no legal obligation to do anything despite the court ruling.
The BBC and the New York Times also published stories on the decision.
Americans United for Life focused on the larger questions of whether countries could individually decide set their own abortion laws.
Abortion proponents’ efforts to make abortion a “right” in Europe were thwarted today when the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that the European Convention on Human Rights contains no “right” to abortion. The Court rightly found that matters relating to abortion should be left to the member states’ own domestic laws.
The Court dismissed two of the plaintiffs’ health-based claims in A, B, C v. Ireland because it found no right had been violated under the Convention. In the remaining woman’s situation, the Court stated that Ireland needs to take steps to better comply with its own domestic laws.
First Things' Joe Carter writes that this could continue a larger debate over whether abortion should be permitted in cases where the life of the mother is in danger.
The problem with the abortion law in Ireland, according to the court, was that while it allowed an exception where there is a “real and substantial risk” to the life of the mother, the Irish government makes it impossible for women to get medical advice or to obtain abortions in such cases. Because doctors and patients run the risk of “serious criminal conviction and imprisonment” if a doctor so much as concludes that abortion is an option because the mother’s health is at risk from pregnancy, it makes the exemption untenable.
The Irish government will likely enact legislation setting out how and in what circumstances women with life-threatening conditions can obtain abortions.
What is most interesting about the decision is that it mainly involves an intramural debate in the antiabortion camp: Are legitimate threats to the life of the mother a valid reason to allow for an abortion?
Reuters' FaithWorld blog includes details on the case.
The court, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, ordered Ireland to pay 15,000 euros ($19,840) in damages to the woman, who was forced to travel to Britain, where the laws are more liberal, to have an abortion. Terminating a pregnancy has long been a fraught issue in Ireland, where some of the toughest abortion laws in Europe allow terminations only when the mother’s life is in danger.
“The Court concluded that neither the medical consultation nor litigation options, relied on by the Irish government, constituted effective and accessible procedures which allowed (her) to establish her right to a lawful abortion in Ireland,” it said a statement on the ruling. Here is a court press release and the full text of the judgment.
Tom Heneghan reported last year on how the case was being described as the European version of Roe v. Wade.
This has been described as “Europe’s Roe v. Wade case” (here and here) because a Court ruling would be an authoritative interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to which 47 European states are parties and with which they must comply. “Domestic courts have to apply the Convention,” the ECHR’s FAQ says. “Otherwise, the European Court of Human Rights would find against the State in the event of complaints by individuals about failure to protect their rights.”
The BBC has more information on the various abortion laws in European countries.
Comments
What business is it of the European "Court" WHAT the Irish stand on abortion is?
Is this a peek at what the New World Order is going to bring us?
.....Other countries with their own set of mores and values telling other members of other cultures and countries how they must live their lives? Taking upon themselves to determine what laws are deemed acceptable to the broad community and what are not?
Sounds awful. God have mercy on us and protect us from ourselves.
Posted By: anonymous | December 22, 2010 10:34 PM
I find it interesting (kind word) horrific is better, that abortion rights advocates always look to the exception (life of the mother arguments)over the actual day to day deaths of people whose lives are ended through abortion. When is the public going to wake up to the fact that abortion is not about anyone's health, it is about business, millions and millions of greenbacks in family planning organizations pockets. Whether they know it or not or like it or not, every single life will be accounted for by pro death organizations, governments and courts who think they have gained economically by brutalizing women. God will hold them all responsible and Judgment Day is coming. Jesus said it will be better for one who offends and misleads a child of His to have a millstone tied around their neck and cast them into the sea. If Jesus Christ says this is the punishment for a small offense against children, I can't imagine what the fate is for those who support and promote abortion.
Posted By: Jon Vermilion | December 23, 2010 1:23 PM
"...it is about business, millions and millions of greenbacks in family planning organizations pockets..." Try billions and billions of dollars per year.
"...I can't imagine what the fate is for those who support and promote abortion." You got that right, bruh. But how about for starters: Revelation 20:15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Posted By: Dan | December 28, 2010 1:01 PM
I had no idea a court based in one country would have control in another country. I thought this was the job of the United Nations and it's concept of world order. So now, any court set up by a bunch of countires can rule the law of a country. Well, than instead of killing babies inside of the womb why doesn't this court go after the laws used in certain countries to control women and little girls, like laws that a three year old can be sold to a man but he has to marry her at age eleven or the parents get her back. Or that an eleven year old even has to ge into a marriage. Apparently the hate towards children in certain countries is spreading to western countries as hate towards those even in the womb. Couldn't this woman get a caesarian. The article doesn't say if she is living or dead and if she would have died without the abortion. But the kid didn't have cancer, she did, and as an adult she should be the only one diening from the cancer. And this is coming form someone who had cancer and of course put myself first, as an adult, you can do that. A child including the unborn is always under the adult's control to give life or death to the child or unborn child. Maybe that's the law that should be changed. The law of hate towards the unborn and the child by adults.
Posted By: Orignal Anna | March 16, 2011 6:38 PM
Original Anna: "I had no idea a court based in one country would have control in another country. I thought this was the job of the United Nations and it's concept of world order."
If you think that, you know absolutely nothing about the UN. It's a talking shop, not a supergovernment.
Original Anna: "So now, any court set up by a bunch of countires can rule the law of a country."
Anonymous: "What business is it of the European 'Court' WHAT the Irish stand on abortion is?"
Ireland is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (which, incidentally, is nothing to do with the European Union; Russia is also a signatory to the ECHR but is not in the EU), and is therefore subject to the European Court of Human Rights. No one forced Ireland to sign the treaty; we joined did it voluntarily. Try to learn what you're talking about before spouting off.
Anonymous: "Is this a peek at what the New World Order is going to bring us?"
Ah, you're a conspiracy theorist. What's it like in your world? Sounds scary.
TRiG.
Posted By: Timothy (TRiG) | March 17, 2011 7:16 PM