Exit poll: Ireland projected to overturn abortion ban in landslide vote

Ireland has voted in a landslide to overturn the country’s decades-old ban on abortion in a major victory for abortion rights activists, according to an exit poll from The Irish Times.

A poll conducted on Friday by Ipsos MRBI for the Times suggests that as many as 68 percent of voters chose to support the referendum overturning the ban, compared to just 32 percent who voted to keep the ban in place.

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The victory is a stunning defeat for supporters of the country’s eighth amendment, which was passed in 1983 and recognized an equal right to life for both the mother of a child and an unborn baby. Friday’s vote followed weeks of divisive campaigning from both sides of the issue.

Ireland’s health minister said earlier this week that if the ban passes he would introduce a bill allowing abortion up during the first 12 weeks of a woman’s pregnancy, the Times reported.

Abortion will remain illegal in the country in almost all circumstances until Ireland’s legislative body, the Oireachtas, passes a law legalizing the practice nationwide.

American right-wing opponents of abortion joined the campaign online, urging Irish conservatives to oppose the ban’s repeal.

The Times reports that supporters of the ban hoped to secure enough votes in Ireland’s rural areas to preserve the ban, but as many as 60 percent of those in rural areas voted to repeal it.

The highest support for overturning the ban came from Ireland’s women, who voted 70 percent in favor of repealing the amendment, according to the Times.