| C Case | |
| Court: | High Court (Ireland) |
| Full Name: | A and B, Applicants, v. Eastern Health Board, District Judge Mary Fahy and C, Respondents and The Attorney General, Notice Party |
| Citations: | [1998] 1 IR 464; [1998] 1 ILRM 460 |
| Judges: | Hugh Geoghegan |
| Number Of Judges: | 1 |
| Italic Title: | no |
A and B v Eastern Health Board, commonly known as the C Case, was a legal case in Ireland on whether a thirteen-year-old girl (known as C), who had become pregnant as a result of rape and was suicidal, could be permitted to travel abroad to obtain an abortion. She was in the care of the Eastern Health Board (EHB), an organ of the Irish state, and the abortion was resisted by her parents, the applicants in the case. Abortion law in Ireland at the time of the case made abortion inaccessible within Ireland; however, in the X Case (1992), the Supreme Court had ruled that abortion was permissible under the Constitution where there was a threat to a woman's life, including a risk of suicide.
Ms C was brutally raped by an adult male (Simon McGinley) on 27 August 1997, and became pregnant as a result. She is a member of the travelling community and one of a family of twelve. The perpetrator was also of the travelling community and a long-standing friend of the family. The evidence before the District Court indicated that she lived in particularly squalid conditions which were quite unlike the conditions in which most Travellers lived. The court believed that the girl was very severely traumatised by the rape. The girl was in the care of the Eastern Health Board (EHB) under the Child Care Act 1991. She had become suicidal and the EHB made a court application to bring her to the UK for an abortion.[1]
Abortion was illegal in Ireland at the time of the case. It was prohibited under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and Article 40.3.3° of the Constitution of Ireland protected the right to life of the unborn. The substantive clause was added by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution in 1983. A further clause was added by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1992 in response to the X Case, protecting the freedom to travel to another state to obtain an abortion.
On 21 November 1997, the District Court made an order that C could leave the state. The parents challenged this order in the High Court. Judge Hugh Geoghegan upheld the original order, allowing the EHB to bring her to the UK for an abortion.[2] The court relied on the judgment in the X Case and on the Thirteenth Amendment.
Ms C had an abortion in the UK in December 1997, accompanied by two officers from the Garda Síochána and her EHB guardian.[3] Her parents were opposed to the abortion, and communicated regularly with Youth Defence.
On 18 December 1998, Simon McGinley was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to the rape of thirteen-year-old Ms. C, with Judge John Quirke suspending the final four years on condition that McGinley undergo sex offenders therapy in prison.[4]
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond Connell, strongly criticised the ruling;[5] [6] [7] however, he declined to fund a Supreme Court challenge.[8]
Archbishop Connell claimed that abortion caused mental health problems:
Youth Defence picketed the home of EHB Chair Róisín Shortall because she did not stop the case.[9]
The Pro Life Campaign criticised the EHB, and called for a full inquiry.[10]
The woman at the centre of the case has occasionally spoken about her experiences, but not revealed her identity. She found the abortion traumatic, and did not understand what was going on at the time. She did not know that she would be getting an abortion, and thought that the hospital was going to deliver her baby. She eventually named and sought a death certificate for the aborted child. She has expressed that she wishes the child would have been put up for adoption. She made numerous attempts on her own life following the procedure, but eventually gave birth to a son who helps keep her mentally stable.[11] [12] [13]
Simon McGinley was released from Arbour Hill Prison in November 2003.[14] In 2009, McGinley was sentenced to 21 years in prison after being found guilty of the rape of an 86-year-old woman in Monaghan the previous year.[15] McGinley was again released from Arbour Hill prison in September 2022 and thereafter moved to the Dundalk area,[16] with the conditions of his release resulting in him being banned from engaging in door-to-door sales and from cold calling to stranger's houses.[17]
McGinley was remanded in custody to Cloverhill Prison in August 2023 after alleged breaches of the conditions of his release, relating to him cold calling to a house regarding the sale of a car and intimidating a teenage girl who lived there. McGinley was also accused of breaching the conditions of the Sex Offenders Act in February 2023 at an address in Skerries, where he was caught power washing the driveway of an elderly lady.[17] In January 2024, McGinley pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of his release and had the 15-month suspended sentence imposed from his 2009 rape conviction activated by Dundalk Circuit Court.
The 2018 abortion referendum, held in May 2018, approved an amendment replacing the wording of Article 40.3.3° with a permissive clause allowing legislation by the Oireachtas. Legislation regulating abortion, the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, was enacted in December 2018. Abortion services began on 1 January 2019.