CCPR/C/119/D/2425/2014
2.4
The author was so consumed with arranging for the journey to England that she did
not have time to process her grief. She and her husband had to leave their 20-month-old son
with relatives for several days; this was the first time they had left him overnight. They also
had to arrange for leave from work and farm relief, as the author’s husband is a farmer. The
author’s manager, whom she trusted, approved a sick note stating that the author had had a
miscarriage. On 17 January 2010, feeling like “a criminal leaving [her] country”, the author
travelled to Liverpool and was joined shortly thereafter by her husband. On 18 January, she
underwent scans and tests at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, which reiterated the fatal
diagnosis for the baby. The author was informed about the procedure for terminating a
pregnancy and received an injection of intracardiac potassium chloride to stop the fetal
heartbeat. On 20 January, she gave birth to her stillborn son at 21 weeks and 5 days. She
and her husband spent the night in the hospital and were able to hold their son and say their
goodbyes. On 21 January, a bereavement counsellor gave the author and her husband
information about bereavement services in the United Kingdom, but did not have any
information on similar services in Ireland.
2.5
The author had to leave the baby’s remains at the Liverpool hospital, and was
heartbroken to have to part with him in a foreign country. The baby was cremated in
Liverpool three weeks later, and the author and her husband received the ashes by courier a
few days later. The termination, cremation, travel and stay in Liverpool cost the author and
her husband approximately 2,900 euros.
2.6
It was only after returning home that the author had time to grieve. Her grief was
mixed with feelings of anger, as the experience of being forced to leave her country in her
situation had been truly demeaning. She returned to work one week after returning to
Ireland, as she feared facing questions from colleagues and losing her job. She was not
legally entitled to any paid maternity leave. The author attended a check-up with her
general practitioner six weeks after the termination procedure, as suggested by the
Liverpool hospital. Although the doctor was sympathetic and non-judgmental, and
discussed the possibility of future pregnancies, the author was never offered any grief
counselling. She felt very isolated during the subsequent months, and suffers from
complicated grief due to the traumatic experience she endured and the forced delays in the
grieving process.3
2.7
The author asserts that domestic remedies were neither effective nor adequate in her
case. Under article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of
Ireland in Attorney General v. X and Others,4 abortion is a crime and is only permitted
when it is established as a matter of probability that there is a real and substantial risk to the
life, as distinct from the health, of the pregnant woman. At the time of the events in
question, the Offences against the Person Act 1861 was the basis for criminal regulation of
abortion in Ireland and defined any attempt to procure or perform an abortion as a felony
punishable by life imprisonment.5 The author states that the issues in the complaint are not
being examined and have not been examined by any other international body.
The complaint
Claims under article 7
3.1
The application of the State party’s abortion law subjected the author to cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment and encroached on her dignity and physical and mental
integrity by: (a) denying her the reproductive health care and information she needed and
3
4
5
GE.17-10463
The author provides an undated affidavit from an associate professor of midwifery who interviewed
the author on 12 December 2013. According to the affiant, the author suffers from complicated grief,
“which has been compounded by a lack of supportive care around the diagnosis, ongoing frustration
at being abandoned by the maternity services when she expressed a wish to terminate the pregnancy,
and a sense of shame and feeling judged by society and her community for the decision she made,
failure to follow up by maternity services and offer post termination care and a failure to offer
appropriate grief counselling.”
[1992] 1 IR 1.
The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 criminalized abortion, punishable with a prison
sentence of up to 14 years.
3