Referendum on abortions kicks off in Ireland

DUBLIN - Voting for a referendum on whether abortions should be legalized or not in Ireland kicked off across the country on Friday morning.

Over 3.2 million registered voters are expected to cast their ballots at more than 6,500 polling stations across the country, which opened at 7:00 am and will close at 10:00 pm local time.

In the 15 hours of voting, voters will be asked to cast Yes or No votes on a question written on their ballots as whether or not they agree to legalize abortions in the country, which have virtually been banned by the present Irish laws.

Results of the polling are expected to be announced late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

A survey released five days prior to the referendum showed that 56 percent of the people will vote Yes, 27 percent will vote No, 14 percent say they don't know and three percent have refused to answer.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who is a strong advocate of the Yes campaign for the referendum, said that there will be no further referendum if Yes supporters failed in Friday's polling.

Special arrangements have been made by the government to facilitate voters in the referendum.

More than 50,000 specially designed ballots have been in place at different polling stations in order to facilitate the voting of blind or visually-impaired voters. Returning officers, accompanied by police, will visit hospitals or healthcare centers to help the voting of those who are unable to cast their ballots at polling stations.

Earlier on Thursday, some 2,000 people living on 12 islands off the western cost of Ireland were allowed to cast their votes a day ahead of the rest of the country in order to make sure that their votes will be sent back to count centers on Friday night in time.

Under a law added into the Irish Constitution after a 1983 referendum in the country, abortions are illegal unless the life of the mother is in danger or the foetus is proven dead in the womb.

The law, or widely known as the Eighth Amendment among locals, has been under increasing criticism in recent years as people who oppose to it argue that such laws only add pains and burdens to pregnant women as each year an estimated 3,000 pregnant women in Ireland have to secretly travel to the neighboring country of Britain for abortions.