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- <text id=92TT0491>
- <title>
- Mar. 09, 1992: World Notes:Ireland
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Mar. 09, 1992 Fighting the Backlash Against Feminism
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 41
- World Notes
- IRELAND
- Justice Redressed
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The plight of a pregnant 14-year-old, allegedly molested and
- raped by her best friend's father, stirred an international
- furor when Irish authorities forbade her to seek an abortion
- abroad. Last week the Irish Supreme Court overturned a High
- Court ruling that had prevented her from traveling to Britain to
- escape Ireland's near absolute prohibition on abortion. The
- girl's circumstance--and her reported threat to kill herself
- if forced to bear the child--had pitched Prime Minister
- Albert Reynolds headlong into a no-win political crisis within
- a week of taking office. He therefore greeted last week's ruling
- with relief, saying he was glad "everything is over."
- </p>
- <p> That sentiment, however, may prove to be wishful thinking.
- The court has yet to spell out the basis of its decision. A
- divisive tangle of legal and political problems remains, not the
- least of which is the question of what happens when the Irish
- constitutional ban on abortion runs afoul of freedom to move
- from country to country, guaranteed under European Community
- law. The episode has aroused enough debate that Reynolds and his
- government may find their future clouded by this incendiary
- issue.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-