Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws contravened a woman’s human rights, UN experts have ruled.
Amanda Mellet, an American woman living in Ireland with her husband, was subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by being forced to travel to the UK to terminate a foetus that was not going to survive, the Geneva-based Human Rights Committee found.
It said that the Irish state was now bound to ensure that similar violations do not happen again – something which is in conflict with abortion’s current legal status.
Abortion is illegal in Ireland unless the life of the mother is at risk. The country’s constitution enshrines the right to life of the unborn. A referendum to repeal the 8th amendment could be required to fully comply with the UNHRC’s order.
Ms Mellet, who complained to the UN body, was told in November 2011, at 21 weeks pregnant, that her foetus had congenital defects and would die in the womb or shortly after birth.
Ms Mellet chose to travel to the UK for an abortion and returned 12 hours later due to financial constraints. She was not offered any options regarding the foetus’s remains by the UK hospital. They were delivered to her unexpectedly three weeks later.
The committee criticised the fact that Ms Mellet was forced to travel to the UK at “personal expense and separated from the support of her family”.
She was also refused access to counseling available to women who miscarry in Ireland.
The committee said: “Many of the negative experiences she went through could have been avoided if (she) had not been prohibited from terminating her pregnancy in the familiar environment of her own country and under the care of health professionals whom she knew and trusted.”
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