Reader's Blog: Low rate of abortion is tied to the Eighth
One thing claimed on the yes side in the Eighth Amendment debate is that abortion rates come down when the law is liberalised — it is claimed off the Guttmacher Institute Abortion Worldwide report for 2017.
This is a total misrepresentation of this report in the context of Ireland. Ireland, as the report says, is the only country out of 39 with the same abortion law that is in the developed world. Liberal laws are mainly in Europe and North America. Guttmacher groups countries with the same abortion law, then compares. Therefore it makes no comparison with Ireland on its own against other countries in the developed world.
When this is done using official government reports and statistics across Europe, Ireland’s abortion rate is lower than all countries with liberal abortion laws. The Irish rate for 2016 was 3.2 per 1,000 women (age 15-44), which was 3,265 abortions based on Irish women travelling to the UK. Under the Protection of Life Act, there were 25 terminations carried out, so 3,290 in total. The number of Irish women travelling to the Netherlands was 31 in 2010, 33 in 2011, 24 in 2012, 12 in 2013, 16 in 2014, and 34 in 2015. This would likely mean over 3,300 abortions for 2016, a rate of 3.3. If we account for the abortion pill estimates of between 1,500 and 2,000, that would mean a rate of somewhere between 4.8 to 5.3.
Switzerland and Portugal have been highlighted as examples by the yes side for Ireland. Switzerland for 2016 was 6.3 and Portugal for 2014 was 8.3. There were 85,500 births and 16,454 abortions in Portugal in 2015, a rate of around 15%-16%, which is significantly higher than Ireland. A similar rate in Ireland after repeal would see thousands of extra abortions each year. The rates for some other countries: England and Wales (16.0 in 2016), Spain (10.36 in 2016), Netherlands (8.6 in 2015), and Italy (8.0 in 2016).
It is quite clear from the evidence that our low rate is tied in with the Eighth Amendment and with our abortion rate already lower than all countries in Europe where abortion is legal, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny that it will be even lower again after repeal.
