Listen to the BBC radio interview with Dr Kelly Culwell

7 December 2009 - London

• Judgement will have Europe-wide implications
• 138,400 Irish women and girls have travelled abroad to access safe and legal abortions since 1980, majority to UK

The European Court of Human Rights will hear a challenge from three Irish women to the Irish Government’s almost complete ban on abortion at a full hearing before the court’s Grand Chamber of 17 judges on Wednesday 9th December in Strasburg. 

The court’s decision to hold the hearing in front of the Grand Chamber is being seen by legal experts as an indication of the importance of the issues at stake. 

If successful, the case would not only be binding on the Republic of Ireland, but would establish a minimum degree of protection to which a woman seeking an abortion to protect her health and well-being would be entitled under the European Convention on Human Rights. 

This would apply to the 47 states of the Council of Europe, amongst which the court adjudicates on human rights issues. A decision from the court is expected in 2010.

Three Irish women, known as A, B and C to protect their confidentiality, are challenging Ireland’s ban on abortion on the grounds that the law jeopardises their health and wellbeing in violation of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights articles 2 (Right to Life), 3 (Prohibition of Torture), 8 (Right to Respect for Family and Private Life) and 14 (Prohibition of Discrimination).

The 3 women at the centre of the case include:

• a woman who was informed by her doctor that she was at risk of an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life threatening condition
• a woman who had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, who became pregnant unintentionally and was unaware of her pregnancy
• a woman who was living in poverty and whose children had been taken into the care of the State, at the time she became unintentionally pregnant she was in the process of improving her personal circumstances with a view to regaining custody of her children.  She considered a further child would jeopardise the reunification of her family. 

Ireland’s law banning abortion forced all 3 women to travel to England to access safe and legal abortion services.

The case of the 3 women is being supported and assisted by the Irish Family Planning Association, which has provided specialist counselling and emotional support to the 3 applicants since they first lodged their case in August 2005.

Dr. Gill Greer, Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, of which the IFPA is a member, said: “The Irish Government should be protecting the reproductive rights of Irish women, instead they have consistently put barriers in the way of women. In light of this, the bravery of the 3 women bringing this case cannot be underestimated. 

That several thousand Irish women are forced by their own government to travel overseas to access the health care they need in Europe in 2009 is truly shocking. 

In this the Irish Government is not only going against the global trend to legalize and liberalize abortion laws, they are going against the majority of their own citizens whom recent opinion polls show to be broadly in favour of liberalizing the law.”

For further information and for more in depth briefing notes on this case, please contact:

Paul Bell
International Planned Parenthood Federation
Tel. 020 7939 8233 or 07799 335533

Fiona Tyrrell
Irish Family Planning Association
Tel. 00 353 1 806 9444