Tensions in Ireland over abortion have erupted at a university campus with attempts to impeach a student union president over her decision to ban information on pregnancy terminations from a student handbook.



The bid to oust University College Dublin’s Katie Ascough over her strong anti-abortion views comes ahead of what is widely expected to be a rancorous wider campaign in the run-up to next year’s planned abortion reform referendum.



A vote on whether to abolish the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution, which gives equal rights to life for a foetus and a pregnant woman, will take place next summer and the clash between some students and their president at UCD is being seen as the opening skirmish.

Ascough faces impeachment over her “executive decision” to remove information from the UCD student handbook including pregnancy help websites, the prices of abortion in other countries, including Britain, and information on abortion pills.

A vote on whether or not to remove her from office, triggered by 1,200 students signing a petition, will be held on 25-26 October.

Ascough has claimed she made her decision after taking legal advice that suggested publishing the information would be illegal. Removing it cost the students’ union an estimated €8,000 (£7,185).

Ivana Bacik, who as Trinity College student union president was threatened with prison in 1989 when she published abortion information in the freshers’ handbook, said there was no legal basis for Ascough withdrawing the information.

Now an Irish Labour party senator and law lecturer, Bacik was successfully defended with three other student union officials by the future Irish president Mary Robinson. The case led to a referendum three years later that added a clause to the eighth amendment making freedom of information on abortion services lawfully available in another state.

“I don’t see how the decision to withdraw the abortion information for students at UCD was based on any legal argument,” she said.



“In reality, for decades now, students’ unions in Ireland have been publishing information in freshers’ handbooks on where to obtain abortions outside Ireland. That generally means that they have been printing the contact details of clinics like Marie Stopes and BPAS in England, alongside information on other options open to women facing a crisis pregnancy, such as contact details for single parent support networks and adoption agencies.



“By providing abortion information in this way, they are not advocating or promoting abortion. No students’ union has been prosecuted for any breach of the 1995 act as a result,” Bacik said.

Anti-abortion groups such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and traditional Catholic campaigners in the Iona Institute have accused pro-choice activists of trying to censor their arguments. They have said the impeachment of the UCD student president is part of that censorship strategy.



They point to the cutting down of posters advertising an anti-abortion meeting in Dublin last month by two men who said they belonged to the leftwing party People Before Profit. The anti-abortion organisations also allege that hotels that were due to host pro-life events were intimidated and threatened to cancel the meetings.

