Pregnancy Termination

Designation of Zones Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Act 2024 designates 100 metres Safe Access Zones around certain healthcare premises where conduct aimed at impeding access or influencing decisions in relation to termination of pregnancy services will be prohibited. The Act also makes provision for enforcement and the creation of offences in relation to such conduct. Termination of pregnancy services are within […]

Application for review of medical opinion Where a medical practitioner, who has been requested to give an opinion in respect of a pregnant woman in relation to  the risk to life or health or fatal foetal condition circumstances does not give an opinion, or gives an opinion but not such as would be required for the purposes of risk to life or health/ fatal foetal […]

Background A referendum was held in 1983, resulting in the adoption of a provision which became Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution, the Eighth Amendment. Article 40.3.3 provides as follows: ‘‘The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by […]

Risk to life or health A termination of pregnancy may be carried out in accordance with the 2018 legislation where 2 medical practitioners, having examined the pregnant woman, are of the reasonable opinion formed in good faith that— there is a risk to the life, or of serious harm to the health, of the pregnant woman, the foetus has not reached viability, and it is […]

McGee Case In the famous McGee, which found the prohibition on artificial contraception unconstitutional in the case of a married woman whose life would be endangered by pregnancy, the Supreme Court relied in part on the right to life.  In the circumstances, conception was likely to jeopardise the plaintiff’s life.  The Supreme Court relied in part on the grounds that the law did not vindicate […]