The Amendment

The proposed amendment was to replace Article 40.3.3 with the following text Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.

Outcome

The amendment was ratified approximately two to one with almost one third of voters turning out to vote.

The Campaign

On 9 March 2018, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy established the statutory Referendum Commission to oversee the referendum campaign, with High Court judge Isobel Kennedy as Chair.

Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had allowed their TDs a free vote on the issue in the Dáil. However, although Fine Gael cannot adopt an official party position because members have been afforded a freedom of conscience vote on issues to do with the referendum, on 21 April Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar launched a Fine Gael 'Vote Yes' campaign for Yes-supporting party members, along with party colleagues, including Minister for Health Simon Harris and Fine Gael referendum coordinator, Josepha Madigan.

On 8 May 2018, due to controversy over the origin, number, content and targeting of adverts on social media, Facebook announced that it would block advertisements placed by foreign entities, most of whom are in the United States, and limit them to adverts placed by Irish organisations. On 9 May, Google announced that it was blocking all adverts on the referendum from its advertising platform and YouTube, citing concerns around the integrity of elections.

On 9 May, the fundraising web pages of Together for Yes, Amnesty Ireland and Termination for Medical Reasons were subjected to a denial-of-service attack.

On 20 May, the parents of Savita Halappanavar called for a Yes vote, her father saying I hope the people of Ireland will vote yes for abortion, for the ladies of Ireland and the people of Ireland. My daughter, she lost her life because of this abortion law, because of the diagnosis, and she could not have an abortion. She died. After the landslide Yes vote, Halappanavar's father thanked the people of Ireland.

On 23 May, CNN reported that American-based anti-abortion groups, such as Let Them Live, have flown to Ireland in order to sway voters to vote No to the amendment. They entered into Ireland by lying to Irish border control about their reason for coming to Ireland, claiming they were only in Ireland to document the event and nothing more, therefore breaking Irish law by their activities—they did not obtain a Volunteer Visa, required to do voluntary work.

Detailed Results

While the final result of an Irish Referendum is determined by what Americans would refer to as the popular vote, Irish voters are divided into constituencies, and each constituency counts and publishes their own results. The final national result is simply the sum of all the constituency results.