Ms Leah Hoctor:

I thank the Chairman for her introduction and the committee for its invitation to present today. Receiving this request was an honour. My purpose will be to provide members with an overview of comparative European law on the termination of pregnancy. To that end, I will describe the grounds and timeframes on which abortion is legal in 46 other European countries. I hope that this information will assist the important and valuable deliberations that the committee is conducting on behalf of the citizens of Ireland, among whom I am proud to belong, in case my accent has not given it away.

Before I turn to the substance of European laws on abortion, it might be helpful to clarify certain matters regarding the Center for Reproductive Rights as it relates to Ireland. As time is short, I will also refer members to the centre's website. The mandate of the Center for Reproductive Rights is well known. We work across the world, specifically in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US, to advance the legal protection of women's reproductive health and rights. This means that the centre uses law to advance women's access to reproductive health care, including affordable contraception and family planning, safe and legal abortions and quality maternal health care. We also work to prevent child marriage and forced sterilisation.

As many committee members will know, the centre's work in Ireland has focused on representing Ms Amanda Mellet and Ms Siobhán Whelan in their complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, OHCHR, and in all advocacy, governmental, media and political engagement related to those cases and the OHCHR's decisions on same. Both decisions held that Ireland was obliged under international treaties to provide effective remedies to Ms Mellet and Ms Whelan. The decisions specify that these remedies must entail compensation, psychological support services and reform of Irish abortion law in order to prevent similar violations in the future.

As the representative of Ms Mellet and Ms Whelan, the centre must call and advocate for Ireland's compliance with the OHCHR's decisions and the Government's provision of the specified remedies. All advocacy, political or governmental engagement by the centre in Ireland has been undertaken in the context of these two cases. The centre's general fundraising for its work in Europe includes Ireland in terms of support for its work on the OHCHR cases and its advocacy to ensure the required law reforms. The centre is not providing any funding to Irish organisations for campaigning or political activities. In addition to our work representing Ms Mellet and Ms Whelan, the centre has contributed modest amounts to the National Women's Council of Ireland, NWCI, and the Irish Family Planning Association, IFPA, to support expert events for lawyers and medical practitioners regarding international human rights law and World Health Organization, WHO, guidelines on safe and legal abortion, as well as events to provide women and men a diversity of views and an opportunity to engage in non-directive discussions about abortion.

Turning to the substance of my presentation, my goal will be to provide members with a quick overview of the laws on abortion in 46 other European countries. In particular, I will aim to outline the standard approach among most European countries to the legality of abortion. To assist with this, I will take us through eight slides. To supplement that information, we have provided a large chart to all members - there are hard copies in the room - illustrating the grounds and some of the timeframes on which abortion is legal in each of the 46. All this information is taken from primary legal sources, which can be independently verified. We have also submitted a booklet to members, containing copies of many or most of the relevant legal provisions. We have brought some hard copies as well.

As members will see from the slides and supplementary materials, the Citizens' Assembly recommendations on the full set of reasons and timeframes within which abortion should be made lawful in Ireland align almost in their entirety with the laws on abortion in almost all other European countries. As a result, if the recommendations on future legislation were adopted, it is safe to say that they would bring Irish law on abortion into line with the laws of almost all other European countries.

Regarding the standard legal approach to abortion across Europe, the first slide shows a map of Europe. Almost every European country - 40 in total - is coloured either green or light yellow. This means that they have made abortion legal either on a woman's request without restriction as to reason or for reasons of distress - those are the ones in green - or on broad socioeconomic or psychological grounds. The countries in red or dark orange do not allow abortion on request or on broad socioeconomic grounds and only in exceptional circumstances.

This map shows that 25 of 28 EU member states have made it lawful for women to access abortion on their request or on broad socioeconomic grounds, at least in early pregnancy. It also shows that 40 of 47 Council of Europe member states have taken this approach. As the committee members will know, all 28 EU member states are also members of the Council of Europe. Only three EU member states do not allow abortion on a woman's request or on broad socioeconomic or psychological grounds. These are Ireland, Malta and Poland. Within the 47 Council of Europe member states, these three EU countries are joined by only four micro-state jurisdictions - Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino.

The next few slides will focus on the approach of the countries in green and light yellow. As we can see from the map, 36 countries have legalised access to abortion on a woman's request. The following slide shows a quick recap of these countries. In the majority, a woman does not need to give any reason when asking for an abortion. In a small number, as shown in the next slide, a woman must explain that she is seeking an abortion because of social or family circumstances or because continuing the pregnancy would cause her distress. The committee can see the breakdown across countries.

What about gestational limits? All these European countries impose a time limit on the legality of an abortion on a woman's request. We can see their time limits on this slide. A time limit in or around early pregnancy is the norm, with a 12 week limit the most common.

In addition to the 36 countries that are green on the map and that have legalised access to abortion on a woman's request, four European countries are light yellow on the map and these four have taken a different approach. They have not legalised abortion on a woman's request but on broad socioeconomic or psychological grounds. In these four countries, for abortion to be lawful doctors or sometimes social workers must certify the existence of the relevant socioeconomic or psychological reason. The slide on display right now shows the four countries, the different reasons and the time limits involved.

What happens in these 40 countries once the time period for abortion on a woman's request or on broad socioeconomic or psychological grounds ends? In almost all of them, after the time period ends, doctors can still legally perform abortions for one or more exceptional reasons. The next slide shows the usual reasons that are allowed under the laws of almost all European countries. Sexual assault and socioeconomic reasons are present in the laws of many countries as exceptional reasons but not always explicitly. The terminology and the approach differs across countries. In some of these countries, these exceptional reasons are each articulated as an explicit ground in the relevant law while in others, the grounds are implicitly included in other grounds. We do not have time to go through all of these grounds now but will focus briefly on women's health and on sexual assault. All of the grounds are listed in the chart that we submitted to all committee members, with a breakdown across the various countries.

In terms of women's health, I wanted to capture for the committee the fact that although legal terminology differs across countries, in almost all of the 40 countries we have looked at the laws explicitly or implicitly allow abortion when a woman's health is at risk. As members will see from the slide on display, the majority of these laws do not specify a time limit for this ground.

Finally, what is the approach across the 40 countries to the legality of abortion following situations of sexual assault? First, it is important to note that in all of the 36 countries where abortion is legal on a woman's request, women who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest can always access abortion within the relevant time limit under the on-request ground. In these countries, women who have survived sexual assault can follow a generally applicable process to obtain a lawful abortion and do not have to fulfil special procedures or report the rape. For this reason, many of these countries do not include an explicit ground for abortion in their laws. At the same time, about half of these countries do have an explicit ground for sexual assault in their abortion laws and this means that women who are pregnant as a result of rape can either access abortion in early pregnancy under the on-request ground or, often later in pregnancy, under an explicit, separate ground related to sexual assault.

I thank members for their attention. I hope this overview has been helpful and informative and I look forward to members' questions.