Abortion books to be unbanned following law change

Abortion books to be unbanned following law change

Three books referring to abortion are to be unbanned following the liberalisation of Ireland’s abortion laws.

The Register of Prohibited Publications is set to be updated to remove a number of books which were banned under the Censorship of Publications Act 1946 for providing information “on the procurement of abortion or miscarriage”, The Irish Times reports.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said: “It is intended that the register be updated to reflect the current legal position regarding the sale and distribution of publications that advocate abortion.”

The books set to be unbanned are Abortion Internationally, banned in 1983; Abortion: Our Struggle for Control, also banned in 1983; and Abortion: Right or Wrong, published in 1942.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is currently campaigning for the complete repeal of legislation allowing for the censorship of books.

The Censorship of Publications Board, which makes decisions on what books should be banned, most recently banned a book in 2016.

The book, which was banned for its depiction of child rape, was the first book to be banned in Ireland since 1998.

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