When gardai were called to the Westin hotel in Dublin last Monday, Eoghan de Faoite congratulated his nine-person team of protesters and declared his latest grandstand against “abortion pushers” an outstanding success.

The 22-year-old chairman of Youth Defence, the anti-abortion group, had succeeded, in his view, in casting a shadow on a celebratory press conference being held by rival pro-choice campaigners. Having made his point, he was happy to go home.

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) had called a press conference to announce that three Irish women, who had had abortions in Britain, were going to sue the government for violating their human rights. It was the latest salvo in a long- running battle between opposed camps, each evangelical in its beliefs, over the rights and wrongs of abortion.

Pro-choice devotees, keen to press home their advantage, were happy to predict last week that the upcoming case would overturn Ireland’s abortion ban, finally dragging the country into the light of the liberal world.

Anti-abortionists bristled at their triumphalism. They fumed that the pro-choice lobby’s decision to turn to Europe to overturn a ban favoured by the Irish people demonstrated breathtaking arrogance.

But do the women, known only as A, B and C, stand a chance of winning their case or is this a publicity stunt by campaigners keen to get abortion back on the political agenda? Either way, news of the impending case signalled last week that the people of Ireland should prepare themselves for yet another bloody round of the abortion debate.

ABORTION remains one of Ireland’s most contentious public issues. In 1983, the constitution was changed to give an equal right to life to the unborn. That was blurred somewhat in 1992 after the X case, in which a 14-year-old girl, who became pregnant after being raped, was barred from leaving the country for an abortion. The subsequent legal battle led the Supreme Court to rule that, if there was a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, including that of suicide, she should be entitled to an abortion. It meant that terminations in certain, albeit very limited, circumstances were legal in Ireland. The government should have passed legislation to clarify exactly what was legal and what was not, but successive administrations have shied away from the awkward task. As a result, the country’s position remains unclear.

Anti-abortionists tried twice, in 1992 and 2002, to have the law clarified to preclude suicide as a justification, but failed in separate referendums. Ireland has held five votes on three occasions on the issue of abortion yet the position remains unclear.

Last week Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, confirmed that the government had no intention of tackling the issue before the next general election.

For the most part, the country seems content to let prevail an Irish solution to an Irish problem. Abortion is banned in Ireland, yet thousands of women travel abroad to terminate unwanted pregnancies each year.

Last year, 6,217 Irish women, including 800 teenagers, went to Britain for abortions. Hundreds more travelled to France, Spain, Holland and America. For pro-choice campaigners, it’s an unacceptable compromise.

“We had to do something for the anguished women that we see every day,” said Julie Kay, an American reproductive rights lawyer engaged by the IFPA to fight the women’s case in Europe.

“The time has come to act. Ireland is so far out of line with the rest of Europe on this issue. If the government won’t do anything, we will.”

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