Referendum as an instrument of “policy change” on a crucial bioethical issue: a comparative case study on abortion in Italy and Ireland

Firstly, the present contribution proposes a brief review on the nature and the role of referendum in representative democracies and it develops a comparative study of the constitutional bases of this institute in the Italian and Irish systems. Then, the essay focuses on the effectiveness of the use of referendum instrument on heated debated bioethical and moral issues in the States taken into consideration. In particular, the case of the referendum on abortion is analysed, exploring the different results obtained and the relative impact on the legislation on the subject in both these countries. For this purpose, the following work indagates the most critical aspects of the Italian legal framework regarding the actual possibility to voluntarily interrupt a pregnancy and the main case-law that has been part of the evolutive process of the Irish legislation. Therefore, on the one hand, the potential failure of the full implementation of the legislation on abortion in Italy due to the complex question of the regulation of the conscious objection will be observed. On the other, the substantial negation of this right over a long period in Ireland will be examined. This will be performed assessing the sequence of the events since the adoption of the so-called Eight Amendment to the change of direction experienced with the positive result of the last referendum vote held in May 2018.