Thursday 28 January 2010

Abortion in Ireland

Human Rights Watch has issued its report on abortion in Ireland: A State of Isolation: Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland.
According to Human Rights Watch, the report shows how women struggle to overcome the financial, logistical, physical, and emotional burdens imposed by restrictive laws and policies that force them to seek care abroad, without support from the state. Every year thousands of women and girls travel from Ireland to other European countries for abortions.
'Women in need of abortion services should, as a matter of international law and – frankly –human decency, be able to count on support from their government as they face a difficult situation', said Marianne Mollmann, women’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. But in Ireland they are actively stonewalled, stigmatized, and written out.'
In December, three cases directed against Ireland raising abortion-related issues were argued before the European Court of Human Rights.

1 comment:

Varro Vooglaid said...

This post here refers to something that interests me more and more. Namely, is it not true that nothing reveals more clearly the fundamental internal contradictions of the doctrine and practice of human rights than the fact that abortion, which is indeed the direct killing of an innocent human being, is no longer viewed as a (serious) human rights violation, but is instead being elevated into the status of a human right? AI, HRW, ECHR and many other international bodies are busily at work to make this happen rather sooner than later.