Ireland is to hold a referendum at the end of May on liberalizing its restrictive abortion laws, a highly sensitive issue in the traditionally devoutly Catholic country.
Leo Varadkar, who as Ireland’s youngest-ever prime minister is regarded as relatively liberal on social issues, made the announcement late on Monday, accepting it would be a difficult decision for Irish voters.
“This is a decision about whether we want to continue to stigmatize and criminalize our sisters, our coworkers and our friends,” he told a press conference in Dublin.
The referendum will ask voters if they want to keep the constitutional restriction on abortion or repeal it and allow the Irish parliament to legislate on the issue.
The plebiscite would come three years after a referendum in which Ireland voted by a landslide to legalize same-sex marriage — a seismic change in Ireland, where the Church has historically been a powerful force.
“This evening, the Cabinet gave formal approval to the holding of a referendum on abortion, which will be held at the end of May,” said Varadkar, who is also the country’s first openly gay prime minister.
Advocating a “yes” vote, Varadkar said he believed the time had come for the public to make a decision on some of Europe’s toughest laws on pregnancy termination.
Abortion has always been illegal in Ireland and in 1983 an eighth amendment was added to the constitution after a referendum, giving equal rights to the life of the unborn child and the mother.
The law was changed three decades later to allow terminations when the mother’s life is at risk, following public outrage at the death of a pregnant woman in 2012 who was refused an abortion.
The referendum would ask voters whether they wanted to repeal the eighth amendment and allow parliament to legislate on abortion. Ireland’s constitution can only be amended by a plebiscite.
Varadkar said debates and votes on a referendum bill would be held in the lower and upper houses of parliament in the coming months, after which a precise referendum date could be set.
The Irish Times said its research found comfortable majorities in both houses in favor of a referendum.
An Ipsos/MRBI survey for the same newspaper found 56 percent in favor of access to abortion up to 12 weeks and 29 percent against.
The prime minister said if people voted to repeal the eighth amendment, his government would then table draft laws that would allow for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.
In the UK, terminations are legally allowed up until 24 weeks or at any time during pregnancy if the mother’s health is at risk or if the child would be born with a severe disability.
“I know this will be a difficult decision for the Irish people to make,” said Varadkar, who leads the centre-right Fine Gael party in a minority government.
“It is a very personal and private issue and for most of us, it’s not a black and white issue; it’s one that is gray. A balance between the rights of a pregnant woman and the fetus or unborn. And it’s a matter for people to make their own decision, based on the evidence they hear, compassion and empathy,” he said.
Varadkar said abortion options for women in Ireland were “unsafe, unregulated and unlawful.”
Thousands of Irish women travel abroad for abortions every year, mainly to Britain, while about 2,000 others use medical abortion pills bought online.
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