Thousands of Irish women fly #HomeToVote to change nation’s strict abortion laws

AN IMAGE of hundreds of women walking in a line with their suitcases has become a symbol in the fight against restrictive abortion laws.

THOUSANDS of Irish women living overseas are travelling home to vote in the landmark referendum which could see Ireland relax its strict abortion laws.

Before Ireland’s 3.5 million people headed to the polls to vote on Friday, photos showed the country’s airports and train stations streaming with people that had come home specifically to vote.

The hashtag #HomeToVote has gone viral on social media as thousands of Irish people posted where they had come from.

People living in places as far as Australia, China, South Africa and Argentina have flown home for the vote and those living across Europe have jumped on trains.

Women still living in Ireland have been filmed standing at Ireland’s train stations and airport arrival gates with signs reading “Welcome Home” and “Thank you for making the journey so other women don’t have to”.

Ireland voted on Friday to either remove — or at least repeal — the constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

Introduced in 1983 after another bitter referendum, the amendment gave an embryo or foetus an “equal right to life” as a pregnant woman.

Since its introduction, Irish women have been forced to leave their country to get an abortion.

One Instagram user summed up the experience so many Irish women have had to go through, whether it was flying to another country in Europe or catching a train across to London. At least 150,000 Irish women have travelled from Ireland to seek abortions since the amendment was introduced in 1983.

“The irony of me travelling alone from England to Ireland to vote to repeal the 8th amendment is not lost on me. Let’s make sure that no woman has to travel to another country alone and scared for medical care ever again,” she wrote.

Through the hashtag #HomeToVote, another Irish woman explained she had travelled 13,000km to vote.

Columnist Lynn Enright said she was voting “for the women who travelled because they were forced to”.

Tens of thousands of Irish women have been forced to travel to access safe abortions - now they're travelling to make sure they never have to again #HomeToVote @lynnenright https://t.co/gBhHlDbkJh pic.twitter.com/CsMZuVUQVS

— The Pool (@thepooluk) May 25, 2018

The people of Ireland are set to liberalise some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws by a landslide, two exit polls from a referendum show.

An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI exit poll suggested that voters in the once deeply Catholic nation had backed change by 68 per cent to 32 per cent.

An RTE/Behaviour and Attitudes survey put the margin at 69 per cent to 31 per cent.

If confirmed, the outcome will be the latest milestone on a path of change for a country which only legalised divorce by a razor-thin majority in 1995 before becoming the first in the world to adopt gay marriage by popular vote three years ago.

“It’s looking like we will make history tomorrow,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who was in favour of change, said on Twitter.

Niamh Gavin casts her vote. Picture: Charles McQuillan

Members of the public hold yes placards in Dublin. Picture: Jeff Mitchell

Mr Varadkar called it a once-in-a-generation chance and polls were already indicating the turnout might be higher than when Ireland voted to legalise same-sex marriage.

Vote counting will begin at 6pm AEST tonight and results are expected by Sunday morning.

No social issue has divided Ireland’s 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

The fiercely contested vote divided political parties, saw the once-mighty church take a back seat, and became a test case for how global internet giants deal with social media advertising in political campaigns.

Unlike in 1983, when religion was front-end-centre and abortion was a taboo subject for most, the campaign was defined by women on both sides publicly describing their personal experiences of terminations.

— Additional reporting from Reuters