Irish reject abortion change

DUBLIN, Republic of Ireland (CNN) -- Irish voters have narrowly rejected a move to strengthen the predominantly Roman Catholic country's abortion law, final results show.

The referendum, held on Wednesday, focused on a legal loophole that allows women to have an abortion if they claim to be suicidal.

The voting was 618,485 in favour of the government motion with 629,041 against the proposal.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern conceded defeat, saying his "honest and genuine attempt" to strengthen abortion laws "has been narrowly defeated."

The Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill was voted on by 42 percent of the nearly three million registered voters, according to RTE, the Irish state-run broadcasting service.

Dublin city voted 61 percent no, underscoring a major urban-rural division on one of the most controversial issues in this country.

If passed, the ban on abortion contained in the country's constitution would have been modified to confirm that operations conducted solely to save the life of a pregnant woman could be performed legally in Ireland.

MORE STORIES • Crossing the Irish Sea for an abortion  • Background: Modern poll on old law    CNN.com Europe More news  from our European edition    QUICKVOTE Should a woman have the right to an abortion if pregnancy makes her suicidal? Yes No View Results

But the amendment would have also overturned a decade-old ruling by the Supreme Court that a pregnant woman's threat to commit suicide is grounds for granting an abortion.

Noel Ahern, the brother of the country's prime minister who is an election monitor, had expected a no vote, saying: "Unless there is a very big turnout in the country, we are looking at a no vote."

Ahern said that "indications are that there is not the difference between city and country as there once was" and said that there was a high turnout of women for the measure.

"Women of all ages are seemingly not as conservative as they used to be."

CNN's European political correspondent Robin Oakley said the debate on the issue had been "very intense."

The referendum in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country was the fifth on the issue in the last 20 years.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Catholic Church leaders had urged voters to support the move, but a broad range of opposition parties and special-interest groups offered a host of reasons -- often conflicting -- to vote no.

Ahern faces re-election this summer. When he came to power in 1997, Ahern pledged to resolve the conflict between the constitution's abortion ban, introduced by voters into the constitution in 1983, and the 1992 Supreme Court judgment.

Ireland's highest court made its decision over a 14-year-old girl who, raped and impregnated by a family friend, had been barred by the government of the day from traveling to England for an abortion.

The judges ruled that the girl's right to life must be respected and her threat to kill herself if denied an abortion was real, therefore she should be entitled to legal abortion.

Ahern and Catholic bishops have argued that the court ruling, if underpinned by legislation, would allow women to make false suicide threats simply to get abortions.

Opposition politicians, who reject this claim, campaigned under such slogans as "Trust women" and "Don't make women's lives worth less."

Ahern already has one embarrassing referendum defeat under his belt, when Ireland last June stunned its European Union partners by rejecting the EU's latest treaty.

Thursday's result also will provide a litmus test of the influence still wielded by the once-dominant Catholic church in Ireland.

At all Catholic Masses last weekend, priests read out letters from Ireland's bishops appealing for a yes vote.

They argued that rejection of the measure would force legislators to draft laws in line with the Supreme Court ruling and, ultimately, lead the country down a "slippery slope" to widespread abortion.

But all sides in the referendum campaign conceded that, regardless of the outcome, it will not affect the reality that about 7,000 Irish women a year receive abortions anyway -- at clinics across the Irish Sea in England, where the practice was legalised in 1967.

A Trinity College Dublin study estimated that nearly one in 10 of all Irish pregnancies are terminated in England.

In Ireland conviction for having an abortion, or aiding or procuring an abortion, can carry a jail sentence of up to 12 years, although women are free to go abroad for a termination.