19 August 2021
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) with Together for Safety has said that everyone has a right to access healthcare safely, with dignity, and in privacy. We are calling on the Minister for Health to follow through on his stated commitment to safe access zones around abortion services.
ICCL’s Head of Legal and Policy, Doireann Ansbro, said:
“The stigmatisation, shame and criminalisation of people seeking abortion in this country has traumatised huge numbers of women over the past decades. Abortion is now legal, but women are still being shamed by those who oppose it.
She continued:
“We’ve seen small white coffins outside our national maternity hospital, intimidating behaviour outside Limerick maternity hospital, and GPs up and down the country have reported the targeting of their surgeries. We know this has stopped other doctors from providing abortion services as only one in ten GPs have signed up. So women are still being shamed and access is still being limited. We need to ensure women and doctors feel safe to both provide and access all healthcare.”
ICCL is working with groups across Ireland to expose how common these pickets are, and the damage they cause.
Karen Sugrue of Together for Safety said:
“Contrary to the dominant political narrative, there are reports of pickets across the country, many bearing graphic and upsetting images of foetuses. It’s hard to overstate the impact of these anti-choice pickets on patients, families, and passers-by who find them distressing and traumatic. Over and over again we hear people tearfully saying the same thing – ‘why can’t they just leave us alone?’”
ICCL began calling for safe access zones in 2019 when it became apparent anti-choice pickets were affecting the right to healthcare. In January 2020, we launched a public campaign for safe zones when a picket bearing white crosses and tiny coffins appeared at the National Maternity Hospital. The then Minister for Health Simon Harris affirmed his commitment to safe access zones on that and many other occasions.
The current government included safe access zones in the programme for government. The Minister for Health has cited legal complications as the reason for the delay in providing them. We have provided a legal analysis to the Minister with advice in this regard. We wrote to the Minister last week reiterating our position and again sending him our legal analysis.
ICCL is a staunch supporter of the right to protest. We fully support the rights of anti-choice people to express their views to policy makers and the wider public. But the right to protest can be limited in very specific circumstances to protect the rights of others. In this case the rights of individuals to access abortion services safely, in privacy and with dignity in a country that up until recently criminalised such access, justifies some limits on the right to protest. Such limits must be necessary, proportionate and as minimal as possible to protect the rights of pregnant people. Where two rights come into conflict, a balance must be struck. Safe access zones would protect the right to healthcare of women, while still allowing anti-choice protesters to express their views and, crucially, make an impact where it matters.
ENDS/
Contact Sinéad Nolan for testimony from women, provided by Together for Safety, who have been affected by anti-choice pickets at abortion providers.
Read ICCL’s legal opinion on providing safe zones: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ICCL-Investigation-Abortion-Safe-Zones.pdf
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights campaigning organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign to secure human rights for everyone in Ireland.
For comment: Doireann Ansbro
For media queries: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie