A, B and C v Ireland

A, thinking her partner was infertile, had become pregnant unintentionally. She was unmarried, unemployed, living in poverty, with an alcohol addiction and had four children, all in foster care and one disabled. At risk of post-natal depression and feeling a fifth child would risk her progress in becoming sober, she borrowed €650 from a money lender at a high interest rate to pay for travel and a private clinic in the UK, arriving secretly in the UK without telling her family or social workers or missing a contact visit with her children. On the returning train from Dublin she began bleeding profusely, was taken to hospital for a dilation and curettage and suffered pain, nausea and bleeding for weeks thereafter but did not seek further medical advice. After the claim being made to the ECHR, she became pregnant again and gave birth to a fifth child, while struggling with depression. However she regained custody of two of her children.

B became pregnant after her "morning after pill" failed. Two different doctors advised there was a risk of an ectopic pregnancy, although she had found it was not. She borrowed a friend's credit card to book flights to the UK. To ensure her family would not find out, she listed nobody as her next of kin once in the UK and travelled alone. The clinic in the UK advised her to tell the Irish doctors she had had a miscarriage. Two weeks after returning to Ireland she began to start passing blood clots, and sought follow up care in a clinic in Dublin related to the English clinic, rather than attending an ordinary doctor because of her uncertainty of abortion's legality in Ireland.

C had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer for three years. She had wanted children, but advice from doctor's indicated that a foetus could be harmed during any ongoing chemotherapy. The cancer went into remission and she unintentionally became pregnant. While consulting her general practitioner on the impact of the pregnancy on her health and life and tests for cancer on the foetus, she alleged that she received insufficient information due to the chilling effect of the Irish legal framework. She researched the issues on the internet alone. Because she was unsure about the risks, she decided to go to the UK for an abortion. She could not find a clinic for a medical abortion, since she was a non-resident and the need for a follow up, so she needed to wait a further eight weeks for a surgical abortion. The abortion was incompletely performed. She suffered prolonged bleeding and infection, and alleged the doctors provided inadequate medical care, and her general practitioner failed to refer to the fact after subsequent visits that she was no longer visibly pregnant.

Article 40.3.3º of the Constitution of Ireland, as inserted by the Eighth Amendment in 1983, provided that "the State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right". This was interpreted by the Supreme Court in the X Case (1992) as permitting abotion only where the continuation of a pregnancy would put a woman's life (not merely health or other interests) at risk. Attorney Julie F. Kay argued on behalf of three women identified as "A, B and C" that the restrictions violated their right to not be subject to degrading and humiliating treatment under article 3, their right to respect for their private lives under article 8, a right to an effective national remedy for these rights under article 13 and equal treatment in relation to Convention rights under article 14. C further alleged her right to life, given the danger resulting from prohibiting abortions, was violated under article 2. The Irish government chose to defend the case, its Attorney General Paul Gallagher, pointing out that Ireland's laws had been endorsed in three referendums.[2] He requested the dismissal of the case on the grounds that no domestic remedies had been sought by A, B or C and that there was no evidence that they interacted with verifiable legal or medical personnel or institutions in Ireland. The women were supported by a host of pro-choice charities,[3] while various pro-life groups intervened to support Ireland.[4]

• ECtHR Judgment (full text)
• ECtHR Press release, 16.12.2010
• Joint Amicus Curiae Brief by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the International Sexual and Reproductive Health Law Programme
• Joint Amicus Curiae Brief by the European Center for Law and Justice, the Family Research Council and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children

• Department of the Taoiseach, "Government Press Statement Re: Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights delivered this morning in the case of A, B and C v Ireland", 16 December 2010
• Center for Reproductive Rights, "European Court of Human Rights Rules that Ireland Abortion Ban Violates Human Rights, But Doesn't Go Far Enough", Press release 16 December 2010
• European Center for Law and Justice, "A. B. C. Irish abortion case: No human right to abortion under the Convention, says the European Court of Human Rights", Press release 16 December 2010
• Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, "Ireland must reject European court’s abortion judgment, says intervener SPUC", Press Release 16 December 2010
• J. C. von Krempach, "A Comment on A, B and C vs Ireland", turtlebayandbeyond.org
• P. Ronchi, "A, B and C v Ireland: Europe’s Roe v Wade still has to wait?", Law Quarterly Review, 2011, 127(Jul), 365–369