This is the case of applicant number 3, where the Court ruled unanimously in favor:
C. The third applicant (C)
22. On 3 March 2005 the third applicant had an abortion in England believing that she could not establish her right to an abortion in Ireland. She was in her first trimester of pregnancy at the time.
23. Prior to that, she had been treated for 3 years with chemotherapy for a rare form of cancer. She had asked her doctor before the treatment about the implications of her illness as regards her desire to have children and was advised that it was not possible to predict the effect of pregnancy on her cancer and that, if she did become pregnant, it would be dangerous for the foetus if she were to have chemotherapy during the first trimester.
24. The cancer went into remission and the applicant unintentionally became pregnant. She was unaware of this fact when she underwent a series of tests for cancer, contraindicated during pregnancy. When she discovered she was pregnant, the first applicant consulted her General Practitioner (“GP”) as well as several medical consultants. She alleged that, as a result of the chilling effect of the Irish legal framework, she received insufficient information as to the impact of the pregnancy on her health and life and of her prior tests for cancer on the foetus.
25. She therefore researched the risks on the internet. Given the uncertainty about the risks involved, the third applicant travelled to England for an abortion. She maintained that she wanted a medical abortion (drugs to induce a miscarriage) as her pregnancy was at an early stage but that she could not find a clinic which would provide this treatment as she was a non-resident and because of the need for follow-up. She therefore alleged she had to wait a further 8 weeks until a surgical abortion was possible.
26. On returning to Ireland after the abortion, the third applicant suffered complications of an incomplete abortion, including prolonged bleeding and infection. She alleges that doctors provided inadequate medical care. She consulted her own GP several months after the abortion and her GP made no reference to the fact that she was visibly no longer pregnant.
Unless, I'm missing something, it was the life of the fetus that was in trouble from the mother and not the other way around. The cancer and abortion were the mother's causes of bad health.
