Irish parliamentarians passed a groundbreaking law early on Thursday allowing limited abortion rights in the republic. 
 
 Enda Kenny and his coalition government pushed through the protection of life in pregnancy bill, which will allow for abortions only when a woman's life is under threat if her pregnancy continues or if she is suicidal. 
 
 Despite threats of excommunication from cardinals and bishops, the privately devout Catholic prime minister eventually won the vote after a marathon two-day debate in the Dáil. 
 
 Members voted by 127 to 31 to legalise abortion in cases of medical emergencies as well as the risk of suicide. 
 
 However, pro-choice and anti-abortion groups have already threatened court cases to challenge the new law. 
 
 The legislation which passed through the Dáil after 24 hours of tortuous debate will not stop the annual abortion trail from Ireland to Britain. 
 
 According to Irish department of health figures released on Thursday, about 4,000 Irish women travelled to British hospitals and clinics to terminate their pregnancies last year. They included 124 who were under 18. 
 
 The new law also does not include women who were raped, meaning grim traffic across the Irish Sea for abortions will continue. 
 
 Mara Clarke, director of the London-based Abortion Support Network, a charity that raises money to help women afford the £400-£2,000 it costs to travel and pay privately for an abortion in England, condemned the restriction on an Irish woman's right to choose. She said: "Given that the Irish government has now had more than 22 years to legislate on the X case, I'm not sure what the hold up is but then I'm not an expert on Irish abortion law. 
 
 "I am an expert in what happens to women when access to abortion is restricted. Even if this law is enacted, only a very, very small percentage of women who need abortions will be able to access them in Ireland. 
 
 "Women pregnant as result of rape, women with fatal foetal anomalies, couples who simply can't afford to care for a (or in most cases, another) child, will still be left behind. 
 
 "This week alone, Abortion Support Network has heard from a woman whose abusive husband hid her passport so she couldn't travel for an abortion, a woman who considered crashing her car to induce a miscarriage, and a couple whose very wanted pregnancy had catastrophic foetal anomalies – and these were only three of the 10 women who contacted us last week." 
 
 Sinn Féin TD (MP) Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin predicted that it was only a matter of time before a case emerged through the courts challenging that aspect of the new bill that criminalises abortion. 
 
 Anyone procuring or seeking an abortion could face up to 14 years in prison. He said a case might result from a young woman taking abortion pills who might seek to challenge the penalty. 
 
 Independent leftwing TD Catherine Murphy said the criminalisation of women seeking abortions could open up Ireland to fresh challenges in the European court of human rights. 
 
 Terminations For Medical Reasons – the campaign group for women who seek abortions because their babies will die if their pregnancies continue – accused the government of lacking courage to include their cases in the legislation. 
 
 "We are enormously saddened that their decision means that it could now be years before this is changed in legislation. With each week that passes, more grieving women and couples will have to leave Ireland to receive medical care," a TMFR spokesperson said. 
 
 During the debate, the Europe minister Lucinda Creighton was expelled from the Fine Gael parliamentary party. Creighton voted against the abortion law reform and is now expected to lose her ministerial job as well. On her way out of the Dáil, Creighton shook Kenny's hand saying: "I'm very sad, but I genuinely wish Enda Kenny and all the government the very best." 
 
 After leaving, she reminded Fine Gael that they had made an electoral promise in 2011 not to introduce abortion into Ireland. ||||| Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted Friday to back Ireland's first bill on abortion, legalizing the practice in exceptional cases where doctors deem the woman's life at risk from her pregnancy, as the predominantly Catholic country took its first legislative step away from an outright ban. 
 
 Anti-abortion protesters holding placards walk through Ireland's capital, Dublin, in an anti-abortion protest Saturday, July 6, 2013. More than 35,000 activists marched to the parliament building to oppose... (Associated Press) 
 
 Thousands of anti-abortion protesters fill Dublin's major thoroughfare, as they march against Ireland's abortion bill Saturday, July 6, 2013. More than 35,000 activists marched to the parliament building... (Associated Press) 
 
 Thousands of anti-abortion protesters fill Dublin's major thoroughfare, as they march against Ireland's abortion bill Saturday, July 6, 2013. More than 35,000 activists marched to the parliament building... (Associated Press) 
 
 Anti-abortion campaigners wait outside the Irish Parliament at Leinster House, Dublin ahead of a parliamentary vote on abortion. Wednesday July 10, 2013. Irish politicians will vote Wednesday to pass... (Associated Press) 
 
 Exhausted legislators applauded Friday's 127-31 vote, while outside the parliament gates abortion rights activists cheered as they watched the result on their smartphones. It capped a grueling debate that locked lawmakers in argument from Wednesday morning to 5 a.m. Thursday and, after a pause for sleep, through midnight Friday. 
 
 While the decisive outcome was expected given Prime Minister Enda Kenny's lopsided parliamentary majority, passage of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill did inflict damage on Kenny's 2-year-old coalition government. 
 
 Catholic conservatives vowed to drive his centrist Fine Gael party from power for violating its 2011 campaign pledge not to legislate on abortion. The government drafted the bill in response to last year's case of a miscarrying woman who died in an Irish hospital from blood poisoning nearly a week after being refused a termination. The death highlighted Ireland's failure for two decades to draft abortion legislation in support of a 1992 Supreme Court judgment ruling that life-saving abortions, including to prevent suicides, should be legal in Ireland. 
 
 Kenny, meanwhile, expelled five of his 74 lawmakers from Fine Gael's parliamentary group for voting against the bill and said they couldn't seek re-election as Fine Gael candidates. Strong support for the bill came from left-wing politicians, including Kenny's coalition partners in the Labour Party, who favor much easier access to abortion. 
 
 Many lawmakers in the round-the-clock debate expressed hopes, or fears, that passage of the bill would put Ireland on a slippery slope to granting wider abortion rights, as has already happened in the rest of Europe. The island of Malta is the only other European Union member to outlaw the practice. 
 
 Divisions ran deepest on the bill's provisions permitting an abortion for a suicidal woman if a three-doctor panel agrees she would try to kill herself if denied a termination. Anti-abortion activists warned that suicide-faking women and sympathetic doctors would exploit the rule. 
 
 But abortion rights lobbyists countered that such cases were rare, and even the most distressed abortion seekers would take the easier option of traveling to England, where abortion has been legal since 1967. Figures released Thursday showed that nearly 4,000 Irish women traveled there for abortions last year, while many hundreds more have performed their own at home using miscarriage-inducing pills ordered over the internet. 
 
 The epic debate reflected Kenny's determination to get the bill passed before parliament closes for summer holidays next week. The marathon took its mental toll on lawmakers, one of whom accidentally pressed the wrong button during a 5 a.m. vote to reject opposition amendments. 
 
 Another lawmaker, Tom Barry, grabbed a female colleague, Aine Collins, by the hips during a 3 a.m. amendment vote and pulled her on to his lap right in the middle of the debating chamber. Both are Fine Gael lawmakers from County Cork. 
 
 Barry said he'd just been kidding around after Collins noted how cold the debating chamber had become. Once the scene became a viral video in Ireland, he issued an apology describing his actions as "disrespectful and inappropriate. ... No excuses, I just shouldn't have done it." He later received an official reprimand from Fine Gael superiors. 
 
 Within minutes of debate resuming Thursday afternoon, the speaker was telling both sides to shut up because they were making his sleep-deprived head hurt. 
 
 "There's a lot of tired bodies in this chamber, including myself, and my tolerance level is getting less by the second listening to you lot, shouting and roaring across the chamber," Sean Barrett said in remarks to the entire 166-member parliament. 
 
 Outside the parliament building, rival abortion protesters maintained a round-the-clock vigil. Police kept them separated, except when one anti-abortion activist flicked Catholic holy water into the ranks of abortion rights protesters, Exorcist-style. 
 
 Both sides also shouted occasional insults at each other, though the anti-abortion protesters spent long periods on their knees with rosary beads in hand. At dusk, many lit votive candles. One accidentally set fire to a pro-life poster, but the flames were extinguished with more holy water.
– Following the headline-grabbing death of a woman denied an abortion in Ireland, the country has passed a planned measure to allow emergency abortions, the Guardian reports. Women will be allowed to undergo the procedure in cases where the mother's life is at risk, including through potential suicide. Abortions due to rape, however, remain banned. The country's parliament voted 127 to 31 to support the new law, which was pushed by prime minister Enda Kenny amid excommunication threats from Catholic leaders. Kenny kicked 74 lawmakers out of his Fine Gael parliamentary group after they voted against the measure, the AP reports. But with some 4,000 Irish women traveling to Britain last year for abortions, critics say the move isn't nearly enough. "Women pregnant as result of rape, women with fatal fetal anomalies, couples who simply can't afford to care for a (or in most cases, another) child, will still be left behind," says an activist. With the penalty for seeking an abortion 14 years in prison, the tough rules are likely to face court challenge, says a Sinn Fein MP.