Ireland’s abortion laws and its policies on faith schools have been among the issues raised by the U.N. Human Rights Committee in a hearing scrutinising Ireland’s human rights record.
In response, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said that “significant recent developments” had been made “in relation to access to lawful termination of pregnancy in Ireland”.
“The purpose of the new legislation is to confer procedural rights on a woman who believes she has a life-threatening condition, so that she can have certainty as to whether she requires this treatment or not,” she said.
According to The Irish Times, the Ireland rapporteur on the committee, Yuval Shany, said yesterday The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act continued to criminalise pregnant women who had a right to an abortion under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Mr Shany said that while the committee had in the past accepted varied practices among member states on abortion, there were in his view circumstances where abortion must be available under the Covenant – “and certainly not criminalised”.
These included serious risk to the life or health of the mother, fatal foetal abnormalities and rape or incest.
“While the 2013 Act represents some improvement on the previous situation it does not address many of the committee’s concerns and has left in place the criminalisation of abortion even in circumstances in which we deem (member) states to be under an obligation to allow safe and legal abortion.”
But the Pro-Life campaign, one of the official Irish NGOs invited to make submissions to the committee, pushed back at Mr Shany’s assertion. PLC representative and barrister Lorcan Price said: “There is no right to abortion in international law. Well-funded abortion industry lobby groups are seeking to mislead the United Nations Committee here in Geneva today by suggesting that the unborn child has no right to life. Such a suggestion is contrary to human rights law.
Mr Shany also criticised Ireland’s policies on religious education, asking, “Is it true that even under the new draft Bill [on school admissions] children of such families may be discriminated against in admission to denominational schools if they do not fit with its ethos?”
He also asked what Ireland was doing to “protect the rights of non-Christian teachers and atheists to gain employment in denominational schools with a religious ethos”.
Responding to the issues raised Layla de Cogan Chin of the Department of Justice, said there was no obstacle to the establishment of non-denominational schools if there is sufficient demand. She said no child had to remain in class for religious instruction.
The committee also questioned Irish representatives on other issues, including symphisiotomy, Traveller’s ethnicity, and the condition of Irish prisons.