Ireland: abortion ban cracks
On Thursday 11 July, Irish parliamentarians passed a law finally allowing limited abortion rights in Ireland. The law, passed by 127 votes to 31, allows for abortion only in cases where a woman’s life is in danger or if she is suicidal. The new legislation, the first of its kind, does the bare minimum to comply with the 2010 European Court of Human Rights ruling which found that Ireland’s failure to regulate access to abortion was a violation of its human rights obligations. However, it does not reform or add any new grounds for legal abortion. The law does not apply to cases of rape and will...