Amnesty poll reveals shift in attitudes with 65% saying they want abortion decriminalised and 81% favouring some liberalisation of legislation

Two-thirds of Irish people want abortion decriminalised, according to a survey that signals a major shift in views on a woman’s right to choose in a country that still outlaws most terminations.

Eight out of 10 people polled for Amnesty International favoured some liberalisation of the law, and 65% said abortion should be decriminalised.

Two years ago, Ireland’s parliament, the Dáil, passed legislation allowing for abortion in extremely limited cases of medical emergencies or when there is risk of suicide if pregnancy goes to full term. Under the law, doctors and medical professionals have the right ultimately to determine if a woman’s life is at risk in these circumstances.

Abortion remains unavailable, for instance, to Irish women who are raped or whose pregnancies are doomed as a result of foetal abnormalities.

The findings of the poll, based on 1,000 telephone interviews in May, demonstrate a widespread lack of knowledge about the legal risk of carrying out abortions in Ireland.

Sixty-four per cent of those surveyed did not know that it is a crime to get an abortion in Ireland when a woman’s life is not at risk. Only 9% knew that having an unlawful abortion can lead to up to 14 years in jail.

Seventy-one per cent agreed that classifying abortion as a crime “contributes to the distress and stigma felt by women who have had abortions” and 45% supported a woman’s right to choose for non-medical reasons.

Amnesty said the results from the survey proved that Irish views on abortion have undergone a major transformation.

Colm O’Gorman, Amnesty’s executive director in Ireland, said: “People in Ireland are now, on the whole, more understanding of the situations women find themselves in and firmly believe that women should not be criminalised for having an abortion.

“This poll demonstrates that on the issue of abortion Ireland’s people are clearly ahead of their government leaders. The Irish government should put this issue to the people as a matter of priority. Decriminalising abortion is not only a human rights obligation – it is what people in Ireland want.”

In 1983, when the Catholic hierarchy still exercised huge political influence in Ireland, the electorate endorsed the 8th amendment to the country’s constitution enshrined in article 40.3.3, which recognises the foetus as a human being with an equal right to life as that of the mother, by 67% to 33%.

By 2002, however, the gap between the anti-abortion majority and those in favour of some limited form of abortion in Ireland had narrowed. An attempt by anti-abortion campaigners to further restrict access to abortion was defeated in the 2002 referendum. But the outcome was extremely close, with just over 10,500 votes separating the two sides – 50.42% voted no and 49.58% voted yes to a proposition to ban abortion in all circumstances.

Amnesty is backing calls in the republic to repeal article 40.3.3 of the Irish constitution, and last month issued a report saying Ireland’s abortion laws violated universal human rights. Subsequently the United Nations has instructed the republic to liberalise its laws on terminations.

Despite growing international pressure though, the Fine Gael-Labour coalition is unlikely to hold a referendum on article 40.3.3 before next year’s general election. Abortion remains one the most controversial issues in Irish politics, and even minor tinkering has caused schisms within Fine Gael.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Savita Halappanavar died in 2012 after being denied an emergency abortion in Ireland. Photograph: The Irish Times/PA

Regardless of the ban and the continued existence of article 40.3.3, thousands of Irish women every year travel to Britain to terminate their pregnancies.

The current government attempted to liberalise the anti-abortion laws in the aftermath of the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died from sepsis after having a miscarriage in October 2012. The Indian dentist, who had been 17 weeks pregnant, was denied an emergency abortion in Galway University hospital that would have saved her life. The medical team treating her believed they could detect a foetal heartbeat and refused her the life-saving termination. An inquest in Galway city concluded that she had died from medical misadventure.

Her death became the focus of an international outcry over Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws.

Last year, the latest legislation, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, was severely tested after medics refused an abortion to a rape victim and asylum seeker who protested that she would take her own life if she was forced to go full term into the pregnancy. The woman was so desperate to obtain an abortion that she tried to illegally enter Britain via Birkenhead but was arrested and deported back to Ireland because she had no official papers. She was then forced to give birth in Ireland.

• This article was amended on 10 July 2015. An earlier version stated that “the electorate endorsed article 8, an amendment to the country’s constitution that in effect made an embryo after conception a citizen of the state”. This has been corrected.

