A repealing vista
The campaign was hard-fought and sometimes deeply rancorous. But in the end, the arguments for change - and the enduring memory of Savita Halappanavar’s tragic death - were more persuasive than the status quo
In the 35 years since the Eighth Amendment was voted into the Constitution, more than 170,000 women travelled abroad for an abortion. Many of them did so in silence and secrecy. But they all had families. They had husbands, boyfriends, sisters, brothers, parents and grandparents.
No one in Ireland was unaffected by the reality of our contradictory Constitution, which said women could not have abortions here but could go elsewhere to get them.
