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Voters in Ireland have chosen to repeal a 1983 constitutional ban on abortions in the deeply Roman Catholic nation, referendum results indicate.
Votes in more than half of the country’s 40 regions had been counted by 4 p.m. Saturday and showed 68 percent supporting the ban’s repeal. The partial results showed 68 percent support repealing the Eighth Amendment to Ireland’s Constitution, which recognizes an “equal right to life” of a mother and her unborn child. Official results on Friday’s referendum are expected later on Saturday.
Exit polls from The Irish Times and broadcaster RTE projected that the Irish people voted in favor of repealing by nearly 70 percent.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, a medical doctor who campaigned for ending the decades-old ban, hailed the result as a “quiet revolution.”
“The people have spoken,” Varadkar said. “The people have said that we want a modern Constitution for a modern country, that we trust women and we respect them to make the right decision and the right choices about their health care.”
“A quiet revolution has taken place,” he tweeted, “A great act of democracy.”
Peter Morrison/AP
Charles McQuillan/Getty ImagesSeeking or providing an abortion in Ireland is currently a criminal offense that carries up to 14 years behind bars. As a result, thousands of Irish women make the trip abroad, often to England, to have an abortion.
More than 170,000 women traveled from Ireland to access pregnancy.htm” id=”ramplink_abortion services_” target=”_blank”>abortion services in another country between 1980 and 2016, according to the Irish Family Planning Association.
Peter Morrison/AP
Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty ImagesRepealing the amendment means that abortion could be regulated as it is in both the United States and the United Kingdom, clearing the way for Ireland’s government to implement more liberal abortion laws. Lawmakers are now expected to debate proposed legislation allowing abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and after that in cases of fetal abnormalities or serious risks to the mother’s health.
The vote pitted conservative backers of strict abortion laws against those supporting a woman’s right to choose.
Although the Yes campaign was supported by the country’s prime minister, neither of the major political parties took a side in the debate, allowing individual politicians to make up their own minds. The No campaign was largely backed by so-called pro-life groups — the most prominent being The Iona Institute, a socially conservative Roman Catholic advocacy group.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesAs the date of Friday’s referendum approached, the debate between the two sides had grown deeply contentious, with both being accused of illegally removing each other’s street posters. The hot-button issue also motivated a number of Irish ex-patriots to fly home from around the globe to cast their ballots, with many posting their positions on social media beside the hashtag #HomeToVote.
The heated, emotional campaign saw limits placed on social media advertisements nationwide, with Facebook and Google banning campaign ads after concerns from experts that some campaign ads were funded by U.S. based anti-abortion groups.
Following a 2015 vote, Ireland legalized same-sex marriage.
ABC News’ Molly Hunter and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
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