Europe

Home page

Europe

Government to ’carefully reflect’ on ruling

17 December 2010 00:09 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Government will carefully reflect on todayâ€™s judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that the Government has failed to properly implement the constitutional right to life of a woman and the right to an abortion where her life is at risk, Minister for Health Mary Harney has said, APA reports quoting irishtimes.com website.
Acknowledging the ruling was binding on the Irish State, Ms Harney said the Government would have to come forward with proposals. â€œHowever, this will take time as it is a highly sensitive and complex area,â€ she said

Ms Harney said it was â€œreassuringâ€ that the court found there was no contradiction between the Irish Constitution and European Convention of Human Rights. She expressed â€œhuge personal sympathyâ€ for the women in all three cases.
However, Labour’s health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said there was now an obligation on all parties in the Oireachtas to face up to the implications of the ruling.
The ruling that Ireland had violated the rights of a woman with a rare form of cancer who was forced to travel to the UK for an abortion was â€œan embarrassmentâ€ for the country, Ms Oâ€™Sullivan said.
She also claimed the Strasbourg court merely restated an earlier Supreme Court ruling which the Oireachtas failed to act upon.
â€œThe Supreme Court upheld the right to a termination in certain limited circumstances but the absence of legislation has left those with crisis pregnancies and members of the medical professional in an impossible position,â€ she said.
Ms Oâ€™Sullivan called for legislation to introduced to provide for the termination of a pregnancy in a very limited number of circumstances; a risk to the life of the woman, including the risk of suicide; foetal abnormality which is such that the foetus will never be born alive; a risk of significant injury to the physical health of the mother.
The court early ruled that the rights of one of three women who took a case challenging Irish abortion laws were breached because she had no â€œeffective or accessible procedureâ€ to establish her right to a lawful abortion.
The woman â€“ known only as â€œCâ€ â€“ had a rare form of cancer and feared it would relapse when she became unintentionally pregnant.
Senator Ivana Bacik said: â€œThis judgment does not change the substance of Irish law, since applicant â€œCâ€ sought an abortion because she was suffering from cancer and the continuance of her pregnancy could have endangered her life.â€
Under the 1992 â€œXâ€ case, where the Supreme Court ruled terminating a pregnancy is lawful where the life of a mother is at risk, the woman should have been entitled to an abortion here, Ms Bacik said.