In a historic victory the Republic of Ireland has voted to effectively legalize abortion, removing a clause in the constitution that had been described by the UN as a violation of human rights.
The Irish electorate voted 1,429,981 to 723,632 in favor of repealing the Eighth Amendment of the country’s constitution.
The result removes the equal right to life of the unborn and mother from the constitution. The conservative 1983 law had effectively banned all abortions, leading to thousands of Irish women travelling abroad to countries such as the UK to undergo the procedure.
The vote came as a total defeat of anti-abortion campaigners, who have already assessed the referendum results as a “tragedy of historic proportions”; they also quoted the Vatican, pointing out that while giving right to a women, the abortion denies an unborn child his or her “most basic right, to life itself.”
EUROPE DIPLOMATIC 