Human rights commission to make ‘significant’ call for wider access to abortion

In a significant move, the Commission will reportedly call for abortion to be decriminalised “in all circumstances” and made freely available “for reasons of a risk to the life, health or wellbeing of the woman, socio-economic or family circumstances, pregnancy due to rape or incest and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality”.

Chief Commissioner Emily Logan and Commissioner Professor Siobhán Mullally will appear before the Oireachtas joint committee on the Eighth Amendment this afternoon.

However, a statement and policy document to be presented to the committee later has already been seen by The Irish Times, the newspaper says.

It says decision-making must be “primarily in the hands of the pregnant woman in consultation with her physician”, avoiding “to the greatest extent possible onerous grounds-based certification procedures”.

It also says that any gestational term limits on abortion should be “devised in keeping with best medical practice, and with the health of the pregnant woman as the primary focus”.

Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland programme director of Amnesty International, said the intervention was “very significant”.

Dublin solicitor Wendy Lyon, who specialises in sexual, reproductive and maternity rights, told Irish Legal News she agreed the new approach was “a very significant development”.

Ms Lyon said: “The IHREC is specifically mandated by the Oireachtas to promote human rights, and one of its functions in pursuit of that mandate is to make recommendations to Government on measures that should be adopted.

“Its clear and unequivocal position in support of widespread access to abortion lends further support to the conclusions of the Citizens’ Assembly, whose proposals can no longer be dismissed as ‘extreme’.

“Hopefully this will go some way toward nudging Oireachtas members and parliamentary parties off the fence.”