|
''Attorney General v X'', () IESC 1; () 1 IR 1, (more commonly known as the "X Case") was a landmark Irish Supreme Court case which established the right of Irish women to an abortion if a pregnant woman's life was at risk because of pregnancy, including the risk of suicide. ==Background== The case involved a fourteen-year-old girl (named only as "X" in the courts and the media to protect her identity) who was a ward of the state and who had been the victim of a statutory rape by a neighbour and became pregnant. X told her mother of suicidal thoughts because of the unwanted pregnancy, and as abortion was illegal in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, the family traveled to Britain for an abortion. Before the planned abortion was carried out, the family asked the Garda (police) if DNA from the aborted foetus would be admissible as evidence in the courts, as the neighbour was denying responsibility. Hearing that X planned to have an abortion, the Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, sought an injunction under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland (which outlaws abortion) preventing her from having the procedure carried out. The injunction was granted by Mr Justice Declan Costello in the High Court. The High Court injunction was appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned it by a majority of four to one (Hederman J.A. dissenting). The majority opinion (Finlay C.J., McCarthy, Egan and O'Flaherty J.J.) held that a woman had a right to an abortion under Article 40.3.3 if there was "a real and substantial risk" to her life. This right did not exist if there was a risk to her health but not her life; however it did exist if the risk was the possibility of suicide. X miscarried shortly after the judgement. Supreme Court Justice Hugh O'Flaherty, now retired, said in an interview with The Irish Times that the X Case was "peculiar to its own particular facts", since X miscarried and did not have an abortion, and this renders the case moot in Irish law. According to Justice O'Flaherty, his reasoning for agreeing to uphold X's right to travel to the United Kingdom for an abortion because of suicidal ideation, "The stark situation is, if someone who is pregnant commits suicide, you lose the mother and the child." In 1994, X's assailant (named in 2003 as Sean O'Brien) was tried and convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge (statutory rape) and was sentenced to 14 years in prison, reduced on appeal to 4 years (served 3 years), and then in 2002 was tried and convicted of sexual assault and false imprisonment of another 15-year-old girl in 1999, was sentenced to 3 and a half years. On 12 July 2013, 7,799 days after the ruling. Dáil Éireann passed the ''Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill'' by 127 votes to 31. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Attorney General v. X」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|