It said Ireland's restrictions on providing clear advice and state-supported medical care to women who receive abortions overseas caused Mellet "intense suffering" and her experience "amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." The 29-page report from the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Committee accepted a complaint filed by Amanda Mellet, a Dublin woman who was denied a 2011 abortion in Ireland after her doctor informed her that her fetus had a fatal heart defect and could not survive outside the womb. Ruling on Mellet’s complaint, the committee concluded that Ireland’s abortion laws, which are among the most restrictive in the world, meant that she had to chose “between continuing her non-viable pregnancy or travelling to another country while carrying a dying foetus, at personal expense, and separated from the support of her family, and to return while not fully recovered”. More Irish women seeking help for British abortions, says charity Read more 
 
 A panel of UN human rights committee experts found that Ireland’s prohibition and criminalisation of abortion services subjected Amanda Mellet to severe emotional and mental pain and suffering in 2011, when she was told she could not have an abortion in Ireland even though doctors had discovered that the foetus had congenital defects that meant it would die in the womb or shortly after birth. "She received the ashes, unexpectedly, three weeks later by courier, which deeply upset her," the report said. The woman was subjected to discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited under international law, they said.”Many of the negative experiences she went through could have been avoided if (she) had not been prohibited from terminating her pregnancy in the familiar environment of her own country and under the care of health professionals whom she knew and trusted,” the Committee said. In its findings the UN said: "The State party should amend its law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, including if necessary its Constitution, to ensure compliance with the Covenant, including effective, timely and accessible procedures for pregnancy termination in Ireland, and take measures to ensure that healthcare providers are in a position to supply full information on safe abortion services without fearing being subjected to criminal sanctions." Ireland's stringent rules on abortion are protected under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution which deals with the right to life of the unborn. A series of opinion polls since 2013 have recorded majority support for extending abortion access to cases involving fatal defects and pregnancies caused by rape or incest, but anti-abortion activists argue that permitting any further exceptions to the ban would lead eventually to the legalization of abortion on demand. In recognising that by outlawing abortion Ireland violated the human rights of Amanda Mellet and caused her intense anguish and distress, the committee has issued a landmark ruling confirming that Ireland’s abortion laws are cruel and inhumane, and violate women’s human rights. The U.N. report said Ireland's law made the rights of inviable fetuses superior to the rights of women and this arbitrary imbalance "cannot be justified," because the unborn child's life cannot be saved. Ireland, which has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is obliged to provide AM with an effective remedy, including adequate compensation and psychological treatment she may need, the U.N. panel said. But human rights watchdog Amnesty International said the U.N. findings should shame Ireland into further action, three years after the country legalized abortions deemed necessary to save a pregnant woman's life.
– The UN's human rights committee says Ireland's effective ban on abortion violated a woman's human rights and must be reformed in what the Guardian calls "a ground-breaking judgment that is expected to set an international precedent." The committee responded to the case of Amanda Mellet, who was denied an abortion during her 21st week of pregnancy in 2011—though doctors said her fetus had a heart defect and would die in the womb or shortly after birth—as a law makes abortion illegal unless a woman's life is at risk, per Reuters. Rather than continue with the pregnancy, Mellet traveled to the UK for an abortion, alone and at her own expense, and returned home 12 hours later, though she wasn't fully recovered, because she couldn't afford to stay longer. The committee says that amounted to cruel and inhumane treatment. "Many of the negative experiences she went through could have been avoided if [she] had not been prohibited from terminating her pregnancy in the familiar environment of her own country," the committee says, calling on Ireland to allow "effective, timely, and accessible procedures for pregnancy termination." Though "the report carries no legal power," per the AP, Ireland must compensate Mellet and move to prevent similar cases under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, per the Guardian. Ireland's government has suggested it won't address the laws directly as a result of the decision—which has infuriated anti-abortion activists, per RTE News—but will ask a citizens' assembly to recommend changes.