The Oireachtas Committee met today for the last time to vote on whether to recommend repealing Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution.
The meeting, which occurred at 2pm Wednesday, resulted in 14 members voting in favour of ‘repeal simpliciter’ — i.e. removal of Eighth Amendment with no substitute text — and six members voting against.
The breakdown is as follows; Chambers, Daly, Durkan, Kelleher, Murphy, O’Brien, O’Connell, O’Reilly, O’Sullivan, Smith, Buttimer, Gavan, O’Sullivan and Ruane all voted in favour of repealing and Browne, Fitzpatrick, McGrath, Naughten, Rabbitte and Mullen voted against.
There are 21 members of the Eighth Amendment Committee, with Chair of the Committee Senator Catherine Noone abstaining from voting.
TDs and senators will now be voting on the 13 recommendations put forward by the Citizens’ Assembly from earlier this year.
Members of the committee have spent the past three months considering the Citizens’ Assembly recommendations on constitutional, legal and medical grounds in association with abortion.
Colm O’Gorman, head of Amnesty International, tweeted the Committee’s result upon deciding:
So that’s it. #8Committee votes by a very large majority for the straightforward repeal of the Eighth Amendment #Repealthe8th #ItsTime
— Colm O'Gorman 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇮🇪 (@Colmogorman) December 13, 2017
O’Gorman tweeted: ”So that’s it. #8Committee votes by a very large majority for the straightforward repeal of the Eighth Amendment #Repealthe8th #ItsTime”
The final report is due to be presented to the government by Wednesday, 20 December, before the wording of next year’s referendum will be finalised.
The Eighth Amendment gives equal status to both the unborn child and the mother. The committee is tasked with weighing up the arguments both for and against the retention of the Eighth Amendment.
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