Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland

Eighth Amendment

Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland referendum

Date

7 September 1983

Results
	Votes	%
Yes	841,233	7001669000000000000♠66.90%
No	416,136	7001331000000000000♠33.10%
Valid votes	1,257,369	7001993200000099999♠99.32%
Invalid or blank votes	8,625	6999680000000000000♠0.68%
Total votes	1,265,994	100.00%
Registered voters/turnout	2,358,651	53.67%

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland gave explicit recognition to the right to life of an unborn child, effectively introducing a constitutional ban on abortion in Ireland. It was affected by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1983, which was approved by referendum on 7 September 1983 and signed into law on the 7 October of the same year.

The amendment was adopted during the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government led by Garret FitzGerald but was drafted and first suggested by the previous Fianna Fáil government of Charles Haughey. The amendment was supported by Fianna Fáil and some of Fine Gael, and was generally opposed by the political left. Most of those opposed to the amendment, however, insisted that they were not in favour of legalising abortion. The Roman Catholic hierarchy supported the amendment, but it was opposed by the other mainstream churches. After an acrimonious referendum campaign, the amendment was passed by 67% voting in favour to 33% voting against.

The Amendment inserted a new sub-section after section 3 of Article 40. The resulting Article 40.3.3° read:

Under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, abortion was already illegal in Ireland. However, anti-abortion campaigners feared the possibility of a judicial ruling in favour of allowing abortion. In McGee v. Attorney General (1973), the Supreme Court of Ireland had ruled against provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935 prohibiting the sale and importation of contraception on the grounds that the reference in Article 41 to the "imprescriptable rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law" of the family conferred upon spouses a broad right to privacy in marital affairs. In the same year, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on similar grounds in Roe v. Wade to find a right to an abortion grounded on privacy.

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