By - Dec 16, 2010
Ireland violated a woman’s right to privacy by restricting abortions to cases where a doctor certified the mother’s life was put at risk by the pregnancy, the European Court of Human Rights ruled today.
Ireland was ordered by the Strasbourg, France-based court to pay a woman who went to the U.K. to abort a pregnancy she feared would kill her 15,000 euros ($20,000), for violating her rights under the European human rights convention.
The penalty of life imprisonment for an abortion, under an Irish law from 1861, was modified in 1992 to allow women to leave the country to end a pregnancy and allowed abortions in Ireland if “there was a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother,” the court said in summarizing the case. The issue lay in who had the authority to determine whether the mother’s life was at risk, the court said.
The woman “had a rare form of cancer and she feared it might relapse as a result of her being pregnant” and “the establishment of any such risk to her life clearly concerned fundamental values and essential aspects of hr right to respect for her private life,” the court said in announcing the ruling.
Irish law “constituted a significant chilling factor for women and doctors as they both ran a risk of a serious criminal conviction and imprisonment if an initial doctor’s opinion that abortion was an option as it posed a risk to the woman’s health was later found to be against the Irish Constitution,” the court said.
The court found in favor of Ireland in two other cases, brought by women whose lives were not at risk, saying the country has the right to restrict abortions given “the profound moral values of the Irish people in respect of the right to life of the unborn.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/ireland-fined-for-abortion-restrictions-by-human-rights-court.html
Ireland was ordered by the Strasbourg, France-based court to pay a woman who went to the U.K. to abort a pregnancy she feared would kill her 15,000 euros ($20,000), for violating her rights under the European human rights convention.
The penalty of life imprisonment for an abortion, under an Irish law from 1861, was modified in 1992 to allow women to leave the country to end a pregnancy and allowed abortions in Ireland if “there was a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother,” the court said in summarizing the case. The issue lay in who had the authority to determine whether the mother’s life was at risk, the court said.
The woman “had a rare form of cancer and she feared it might relapse as a result of her being pregnant” and “the establishment of any such risk to her life clearly concerned fundamental values and essential aspects of hr right to respect for her private life,” the court said in announcing the ruling.
Irish law “constituted a significant chilling factor for women and doctors as they both ran a risk of a serious criminal conviction and imprisonment if an initial doctor’s opinion that abortion was an option as it posed a risk to the woman’s health was later found to be against the Irish Constitution,” the court said.
The court found in favor of Ireland in two other cases, brought by women whose lives were not at risk, saying the country has the right to restrict abortions given “the profound moral values of the Irish people in respect of the right to life of the unborn.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/ireland-fined-for-abortion-restrictions-by-human-rights-court.html
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