LONDON — Ireland’s ban on most abortions subjects women to cruel, degrading and discriminatory treatment, and should be lifted in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities, a committee of United Nations human rights experts said on Thursday.

The committee found that Ireland had violated a pregnant woman’s human rights by forcing her to choose between carrying her fetus to term — knowing it would not survive — or traveling abroad for an abortion.

The committee urged Ireland to change its laws — “including, if necessary, its Constitution” — to allow abortions and to let medical providers give information on abortion services “without fearing being subjected to criminal sanctions.”

Although Ireland became the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote last year, it has some deeply conservative roots, and the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against abortion has not changed.