Abortion referendum: Ireland votes to repeal constitutional amendment in historic vote
Updated
Ireland has voted by a landslide to liberalise some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, in what its Prime Minister described as the culmination of a "quiet revolution" in what was one of Europe's most socially conservative countries.
Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation backed the change by more than two-to-one. Final provisional results show that 66.4 per cent of voters opted to repeal a constitutional amendment that in effect banned abortion in a vast majority of cases.
The Government plans to bring in legislation by the end of the year.
"It's incredible. For all the years and years and years we've been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means everything," said Mary Higgins, obstetrician and Together For Yes campaigner.
"The public have spoken. The result appears to be resounding … in favour of repealing the 8th Amendment [constitutional ban on abortion]," said Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned for repeal.
"What we see is the culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland over the last couple of decades."
The outcome was the latest milestone on a path of change for a country which only legalised divorce by a razor thin majority in 1995 before becoming the first in the world to adopt same-sex marriage by popular vote three years ago.
Soon after the counting began, a spokesman for an anti-abortion umbrella group Save The 8th John McGuirk conceded there was "no prospect" the country's abortion ban, imposed in a 1983 referendum, would be retained.
"What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions," Save The 8th said.
"However, a wrong does not become a right simply because a majority support it."
'It's a big step for women'
Ailbhe Longmore, 21, is a student who travelled back from Cologne in Germany to vote "Yes", and said her friend had an illegal abortion in Ireland two years ago and had to pretend she had a miscarriage.
"I thought this race was going to be so tight, and I'm in shock that it's passed. I'm in utter shock," she said.
"I think it's wrong to say that we shouldn't be celebrating, it's a big step for women and it's a big step for us.
"We're trying to get rid of the stigma of having an abortion, there's nothing wrong with going out and having a few drinks and crying, because it's been so hard to watch."
Jenny Headen, 42, said she voted "Yes" because "I believe it's an absolute human right to have the autonomy with what you choose, to be able to choose".
"I'm certainly not pro-abortion, but I'm pro-choice, and if I was in a position or if sisters, friends, mothers, daughters, that they are all able to have the choice with what they want with their bodies," she said.
"I think a lot of people yesterday were quite surprised when they went in to mark the X in the box, what a journey we've been on, and that was a really emotional release for a lot of people.
"But I think we've voted 'Yes' for equality, we've voted 'Yes' for body autonomy, we are on a road."
Voters were asked if they wished to scrap the amendment, which gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life. The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother's life was in danger.
The country's largest newspaper, the Irish Independent described the result as "a massive moment in Ireland's social history".
Campaigners for change, wearing "Repeal" jumpers and "Yes" badges, gathered at the main Dublin count centre, many in tears and hugging each other.
"Yes" campaigners argued that with over 3,000 women travelling to Britain each year for terminations — a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum — and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion is already a reality in Ireland.
Reform in Ireland also raised the prospect that women in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, may start travelling south of the border.
No social issue has divided Ireland's 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.
Campaigners left flowers and candles at a large mural of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, in central Dublin.
An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI exit poll suggested that voters backed change by 68 per cent to 32 per cent and indicated majorities in all age groups under 65 voted for change, including almost nine in every 10 voters under the age of 24.
"It's possible even that we could carry every constituency in the country; men and women; almost every age group and every social class," Mr Varadkar said.
"And that indicates to me that we are a country that is not divided."
Mr Varadkar said he planned to enact the legislation before the end of the year.
Jim Wells, a member of Northern Ireland's socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, said that after the vote Northern Ireland and Malta were the only parts of Europe where the unborn child was properly protected.
"It is inevitable that the abortion industry based in Great Britain will set up clinics in border towns," he said.
ABC/Reuters
Topics: abortion, reproduction-and-contraception, family-and-children, family, community-and-society, pregnancy-and-childbirth, law-crime-and-justice, ireland
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