The Irish Vote On Abortion

Ireland voted on Wednesday in a referendum that the government and powerful Roman Catholic church hope will further tighten the strictest abortion curbs in the European Union, but which has confused many residents.

Nuns, housewives, pensioners and other voters trickled into polling stations for the country's fifth referendum on the highly emotive issue in two decades. Results were expected by mid-afternoon on Thursday.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, a strong backer of the referendum, said as he cast his ballot in north Dublin that "people should use their vote" and not to do so was dangerous for the democratic process.

But right up to the last minute many voters, bombarded by conflicting information about the effect of the referendum, divisions of opinion within the medical profession and even a split among among pro-life groups, had not made up their minds.

"I don't know yet how I'm going to vote," one Dublin stockbroker said just before the polls opened.

The referendum is designed to close a major loophole left by a 1992 court ruling that said the potential suicide of a mother must be grounds for her having an abortion.

Ireland otherwise bans abortions, although some are performed in extreme medical cases affecting the health of the mother. Some 7,000 Irish women a year travel to Britain to terminate pregnancies.

Despite the court ruling, the threat of suicide has never been incorporated into Irish law as grounds for abortion. The referendum aims to close off that option, while permitting termination when a mother's life is endangered.

Some 2.8 million of Ireland's 3.8 million residents are eligible to vote in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, where the church last Sunday sent a powerful message to its flock to turn out to vote "yes."

The center-right government also supports a "yes," but opposition party Fine Gael is urging a "no" and wants limited legislation to implement the 1992 court ruling.

Students in a country where half the population is under 30 complained that many of them would effectively be disenfranchised because of the mid-week timing of the poll.

"Over half the students actually live away from home and a poll on a Wednesday makes it exceptionally difficult for them to get to the polling booth," Richard Hammond of the Union of Students of Ireland told state broadcaster RTE.

"Of those who are living at home up to 60 percent of them are working so we reckon that up to 75 percent of students are going to be disenfranchised by the Wednesday poll," he said.

By Michael Roddy