DUBLIN - Ireland was set to liberalise some of Europe's strictest abortion laws in a landslide referendum vote in this mainly Catholic country that Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called Saturday the "culmination of a quiet revolution". The result looks set to be another hammer blow to the Roman Catholic Church's authority in Ireland, coming three years after referendum voters backed legalising same-sex marriage by 62 percent. Ireland's eighth amendment recognises the "right to life of the unborn" with an "equal right to life of the mother". The amendment was introduced after a 1983 referendum that approved a constitutional ban on abortion. The ban has led to thousands of women travelling each year to neighbouring Britain, where terminations are legal, or increasingly turning to abortion pills sold online.

Source: Bangkok Post May 26, 2018 12:33 UTC