Ireland is having a referendum over its abortion law

The Irish government has announced that in May there will be a referendum which will ask if the country should modernise its strict abortion laws.

In Western Europe, Ireland and Northern Ireland have some of the strictest abortion laws. At the moment, abortion is illegal in Ireland unless the pregnancy could endanger the life of the woman. It is not legal even for cases of incest, rape or if there is an anomaly with the foetus.

PM Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Health Simon Harris make the announcement in Dublin

The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, announced the plans for a referendum, which will simply ask whether to reform the abortion laws. He said he will campaign for the laws to be made more liberal if it means a “doctor-led, legal and safe system”.

Right now, many Irish and Northern-Irish women with unwanted pregnancies are travelling to the UK and other countries to have the procedure. However, they are also turning to abortion pills online which can be deemed unsafe and dangerous.

Varadkar acknowledged this in his speech announcing the referendum saying: “We have abortion in Ireland but it is unsafe, unregulated and illegal. We should remember the saddest and loneliest journey is made by Irish women who travel to other countries in their thousands to end their pregnancies. These journeys don’t have to happen.”

At the moment, the law is enshrined as the eighth amendment in the Irish constitution which recognises the life of an unborn child as equal to the mother.

Recent polls have suggested that the majority of the country is in favour of changing the laws so that women can have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

In the UK, abortion is legal until the 24th week of pregnancy (pending approval from two separate doctors). Last year, the UK government announced that women from Northern Ireland would no longer have to pay for the abortions they had in the UK.

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