CCPR/C/119/D/2425/2014 forcing her to continue carrying a dying fetus; (b) compelling her to terminate her pregnancy abroad; and (c) subjecting her to intense stigmatization for terminating her pregnancy. 3.2 The expectation of care that the author had formed as a patient, her extreme vulnerability upon learning that her baby would die, the complete denial of information from her health-care providers and the prospect of having to terminate a much-wanted pregnancy abroad with no support from the Irish health-care system illustrate the intense mental anguish suffered by the author. The health-care system’s abandonment of its care for her, including through its failure to provide her with any counselling services or information about her options, made her feel as if she were entirely undeserving of care, and was not treated with respect for the dignity inherent in her person. Furthermore, no special arrangements were made to offer sensitive, supportive care to her should she have chosen to continue her pregnancy in Wexford, and she would have had to continue attending her medical appointments as if hers was a normal pregnancy. 3.3 Having to travel abroad and be forcibly separated from her family and far from home also exposed the author to certain obstacles to her recovery, which impinged on her physical and mental integrity and dignity. It also interfered with her ability to mourn the loss of her pregnancy. Her emotional distress was prolonged because she had to leave the baby’s remains abroad and therefore was denied the rituals that normally accompany loss and grief.6 Claims under article 17 3.4 The prohibition on pregnancy termination constituted a breach of the author’s right to privacy, as it compromised her reproductive autonomy and her right to integrity and mental well-being by denying her the support of her family during a moment of trauma and crisis. The Committee’s Views in K.N.L.H. v. Peru indicate that women’s reproductive autonomy is included in the right to privacy and may be at stake when the State interferes with a woman’s reproductive decision-making.7 By banning abortion and preventing the author from exercising the only option that would have respected her physical and psychological integrity (allowing her to terminate her pregnancy in Ireland), the State arbitrarily interfered in her decision-making. The ban on abortion, which prioritized fetal life over the author’s right to mental well-being, psychological integrity and reproductive autonomy, constituted a clearly disproportionate interference with the author’s right to privacy. 3.5 Furthermore, the physical distance from her well-known surroundings and family, as well as the emotional trauma of feeling abandoned by her own country, interfered with her private life, understood as the relationships and support framework she enjoyed in Ireland. By defining the moral interest in protecting fetal life as superior to the author’s right to mental stability, psychological integrity and reproductive autonomy, Ireland breached the principle of proportionality and violated her right to privacy. Even if the Committee accepts that the protection of the life of the “unborn” can serve as a justification for interfering with a woman’s right to privacy in certain situations, this cannot apply in the present case. Limiting her right to privacy by denying her the right to terminate a pregnancy that would never result in a viable child cannot be considered a reasonable measure to protect the life of the unborn. Thus the interference with her right to privacy was arbitrary. 6 7 4 The author provides an affidavit dated 4 November 2013 from a consultant psychiatrist who interviewed the author on 29 January 2014. The psychiatrist stated, inter alia, that the author “appears to have trusted the state, and that the betrayal of this trust was in itself a shock to her. She suffered unnecessary distress in relation to the absence of any response from the state services; the trauma of separating her son from his parents for the first time; being forced to travel abroad for the sole purpose of having a physically and psychologically difficult procedure; having to leave her baby’s remains in a foreign country and finding the financial resources to fund the travel and the procedure.” The psychiatrist was “of the opinion that through the process of deliberate neglect of her care in the Irish health service that she has suffered cruel and inhuman treatment and that this has had a permanent effect on her personality”. Communication No. 1153/2003, Views adopted on 24 October 2005. GE.17-10463