Ireland’s remaining abortion restrictions ‘inhumane’, claims UN official

6th July 2022

Ireland’s abortion legislation is “inhumane” and “discriminatory” in its treatment of women with crisis pregnancies, according to a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. This is despite it allowing abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks, which is in line with many other European countries. She was echoing complaints from Irish abortion campaigners who want the law to go even further.

The body is examining Ireland’s compliance with the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights .

Minister for Equality and Children, Roderic O’Gorman was in Geneva, Switzerland, leading a high-level delegation of senior civil servants to respond to the committee.

Hélène Tigroudja, a member of the body, said the 2018 abortion act placed “very many barriers, both legal and practical” to “safe, legal and non-discriminatory access to abortion”.

She said the three-day wait period was “a disadvantage for women living in rural areas, women in poverty and women experiencing violence [who] simply cannot return several times”.

She also attacked the rule that women carrying a child with a serious disability could access abortion only where the child was likely to die within 28 days of birth: “This is a problem for women who are less well off. They have to continue with their pregnancy … This is inhuman treatment and this is discrimination on the grounds of economic status,” she said.