The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1983 was an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which inserted a subsection recognising "the equal right to life of the pregnant woman and the unborn". Abortion had been subject to criminal penalty in Ireland since at least 1861; the amendment ensured that legislation or judicial interpretation would be restricted to allowing abortion in circumstances where the life of a pregnant woman was at risk. It was approved by referendum on 7 September 1983 and signed into law on 7 October 1983. In 2018, it was repealed by the thirty-sixth amendment.
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. Fianna Fáil supported the amendment, while Fine Gael and Labour were divided in the Dáil vote. The Workers' Party was the only party to vote unanimously against the Bill in the Dáil. Most of those opposed to the amendment insisted that they were not in favour of legalising abortion. The Catholic hierarchy and many lay Catholics supported the amendment, but it was opposed by the authorities of other mainstream churches. After a bitter referendum campaign, the amendment was passed by 67% voting in favour to 33% voting against.
Changes to the text The Amendment inserted a new sub-section after section 3 of Article 40. The resulting Article 40.3.3° read:
Background As per 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.
The Pro-Life Amendment Campaign (PLAC) was founded in 1981 to campaign against a ruling in Ireland similar to the United States Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. Prior to the 1981 general election, PLAC lobbied the major Irish political parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party – to urge the introduction of a Bill to allow the amendment to the constitution to prevent the Irish Supreme Court so interpreting the constitution as giving a right to abortion. The leaders of the three parties – respectively Charles Haughey, Garret FitzGerald and Frank Cluskey – agreed although there was little consultation with any of their parties' ordinary members. All three parties were in government over the following eighteen months, but it was only in late 1982, just before the collapse of a Fianna Fáil minority government, that a proposed wording for the amendment was produced.
Oireachtas debate The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1982 was introduced on 2 November 1982 by Minister for Health Michael Woods. The bill introduced by the Fianna Fáil minority government proposed to add Article 40.3.3° to the Constitution, with the wording shown above.
On 4 November, the Fianna Fáil government led by Charles Haughey as Taoiseach lost a motion of confidence in the Dáil, leading to the November 1982 general election. After the election, a coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party was formed, with Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach. Minister for Health Barry Desmond declined to reintroduce the amendment; instead, it was Minister for Justice Michael Noonan who on 2 February moved to restore the Eighth Amendment to the Order Paper.
Attorney General Peter Sutherland advised that the wording as proposed was dangerously flawed. Speaking against the original wording during the Dáil debate Alan Shatter argued:
To remedy the perceived weaknesses in the original wording of the amendment bill, the government proposed an amendment to the bill during the committee stage with the following alternative wording:
This alternative wording was criticised by the opposition for not being "pro-life". Speaking against the alternative wording Michael Woods said:
A number of backbench Fine Gael TDs supported the Fianna Fáil wording, and voted against the government amendment, which was defeated by 87 to 65. The majority of Fine Gael TDs then abstained in subsequent votes. The original wording proposed by Fianna Fáil was then approved by 85 votes to 11 votes in the Dáil, and by 14 votes to 6 in the Seanad, and put to a referendum.
+ Dáil vote on Final Reading of Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1982 Vote Parties VotesYes Fianna Fáil (73), Fine Gael (7), Labour Party (5), Independent Fianna Fáil (1) No Labour Party (8), Workers' Party (2), Independent (1) Not voting Fine Gael (63), Labour Party (3), Fianna Fáil (1), Ceann Comhairle (1) Source: Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1982: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Final Stages.
The Workers' Party was the only party whose entire Dáil membership voted against the Bill on its final reading. Both its TDs, Tomás Mac Giolla and Proinsias De Rossa, voted against its passage on 27 April 1983.
Referendum campaign The referendum was supported by PLAC, Fianna Fáil, some members of Fine Gael, the Catholic hierarchy, and opposed by various groups under the umbrella name of the Anti-Amendment Campaign (AAC), including Labour senator (and future President of Ireland) Mary Robinson, feminist campaigners, and trade unions. Few in Fine Gael or Labour campaigned against the referendum, and before the vote, Garret FitzGerald declared that he would vote against it. Sinn Féin and the Workers' Party opposed the amendment, and the Irish Council of Churches (representing the main Protestant churches) campaigned against it.
The Workers' Party conducted a separate campaign from the Anti-Amendment Campaign, emphasising civil liberties and religious pluralism. Its activists distributed leaflets and posters and canvassed door to door against the amendment, while the party continued to distinguish its opposition to the constitutional change from support for legalising abortion. Following the referendum, Fianna Fáil minister Michael Woods attributed the high No vote in some working-class districts of Dublin to the Workers' Party's campaigning.
Anti-Amendment campaigners warned the vague nature of the amendment, the sectarian nature of it, the possible risk to the health treatment to pregnant women, and to the possible legal consequences for contraception, which the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign denied.
The Amendment passed on 7 September 1983 endorsed by 67% of those who voted.
Result
+Results by constituency Constituency Electorate Votes Proportion of votes Yes No Yes No Carlow–Kilkenny 75,490 52.0% 26,751 12,134 68.8% 31.2% Cavan–Monaghan 74,237 55.3% 33,165 7,556 81.4% 18.6% Clare 61,747 48.9% 22,136 7,838 73.8% 26.2% Cork East 54,309 57.1% 22,131 8,657 71.8% 28.2% Cork North-Central 63,272 49.0% 19,877 10,862 64.6% 35.4% Cork North-West 40,873 62.3% 20,554 4,694 81.4% 18.6% Cork South-Central 69,102 55.7% 21,342 16,909 55.8% 44.2% Cork South-West 41,614 58.0% 18,446 5,510 77.0% 23.0% Donegal North-East 42,203 53.1% 18,475 3,807 82.9% 17.1% Donegal South-West 45,823 47.2% 17,693 3,838 82.2% 17.8% Dublin Central 70,403 49.6% 21,508 13,174 62.0% 38.0% Dublin North 41,713 53.2% 11,898 10,228 53.7% 46.3% Dublin North-Central 55,426 60.7% 19,203 14,301 57.3% 42.7% Dublin North-East 46,686 58.6% 13,393 13,831 49.2% 50.8% Dublin North-West 51,277 49.9% 13,354 12,105 52.5% 47.5% Dublin South 72,964 62.2% 20,517 24,659 45.4% 54.6% Dublin South-Central 73,510 51.0% 21,016 16,170 56.5% 43.5% Dublin South-East 64,222 53.4% 16,814 17,292 49.3% 50.7% Dublin South-West 58,429 55.3% 15,794 16,294 49.2% 50.8% Dublin West 72,040 52.3% 20,510 16,960 54.7% 45.3% Dún Laoghaire 73,030 58.6% 17,876 24,651 42.0% 58.0% Galway East 43,043 50.0% 17,166 4,219 80.3% 19.7%Galway West 78,497 41.0% 20,624 11,353 64.5% 35.5% Kerry North 43,752 54.0% 18,027 5,383 77.0% 23.0% Kerry South 41,929 54.3% 18,458 4,112 81.8% 18.2% Kildare 69,559 48.4% 19,856 13,551 59.4% 40.6% Laois–Offaly 73,073 55.0% 31,017 8,859 77.8% 22.2% Limerick East 65,823 55.7% 24,963 11,520 68.4% 31.6% Limerick West 42,822 54.3% 18,296 4,768 79.3% 20.7% Longford–Westmeath 59,062 53.1% 23,665 7,363 76.3% 23.7% Louth 59,415 55.0% 22,828 9,647 70.3% 29.7% Mayo East 41,861 52.4% 18,261 3,534 83.8% 16.2% Mayo West 41,445 47.9% 16,040 3,705 81.2% 18.8% Meath 69,136 54.1% 27,117 10,054 72.9% 27.1% Roscommon 41,302 54.6% 18,738 3,626 83.8% 16.2% Sligo–Leitrim 59,682 54.5% 24,891 7,379 77.1% 22.9% Tipperary North 41,069 58.5% 18,911 4,905 79.4% 20.6% Tipperary South 54,267 53.8% 22,041 6,907 76.1% 23.9% Waterford 57,531 53.2% 20,917 9,481 68.8% 31.2% Wexford 67,557 59.0% 28,843 10,752 72.8% 27.2% Wicklow 59,456 53.6% 18,121 13,548 57.2% 42.8%Total 2,358,651 53.7% 841,233 416,136 66.9% 33.1%
Judicial interpretation In a number of cases, the Supreme Court had held that this provision of the Constitution prohibited information within the state on the availability of abortion services outside of the state. In AG (SPUC) v Open Door Counselling Ltd. (1988), the courts granted an injunction restraining two counseling agencies from assisting women to travel abroad to obtain abortions or informing them of the methods of communications with such clinics, and in SPUC v Grogan (1989), the courts granted an injunction restraining three students' unions from distributing information in relation to abortion available outside the state. These rulings were overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment in 1992, which explicitly gave people the right to travel abroad for an abortion, and to receive information in Ireland about abortion available abroad.
In Attorney General v X (the X Case) in early 1992, the High Court granted an injunction to the Attorney General restraining a fourteen-year-old girl who had been raped from obtaining an abortion in England. On appeal, Supreme Court found that as the girl had shown a risk of suicide, to safeguard "the equal right to life of the mother" in Article 40.3.3°, abortion was permissible in this instance.
The Pro Life Campaign, a successor to PLAC, accused the Supreme Court of misinterpreting both the law and the will of the people. The Government and former Attorney-General Peter Sutherland dismissed such claims, arguing that, as they had claimed in 1983, the 'Pro-Life Amendment' was so poorly worded and ambiguous that it could facilitate either pro-abortion rights or anti-abortion interpretations in different circumstances. The Amendment was not reinterpreted by the Supreme Court on the grounds originally voiced by Peter Sutherland that it would lead to abortion prior to viability or kill women by refusing standard treatments for ectopic pregnancies, cancerous wombs, etc. There was no medical evidence called during the X Case hearings.
In PP v. HSE (2014), the High Court held that the constitution did not require a woman who was medically brain dead to be kept on life support to keep the foetus within her alive, because the chance of the foetus being born alive were "virtually non-existent". It is unclear how the case would have been decided if the pregnancy was further along.
In HSE v. B. (2016), the High Court declined to grant an order sought by the Health Service Executive permitting it to carry out a caesarean section against the will of a pregnant mother.