Ms Ciara Staunton:

I thank the committee again for inviting us here to give our independent legal opinion on the X case and any implementation of that. When this committee begins to draft the heads of the Bill, the most important thing we must do is give effect to the X case. We must ensure that the legislation states when an abortion is lawful in Ireland in accordance with the X case. However, I urge the committee to consider the other issues and situations which may arise from Article 40.3.3o. We do not want to come back here again if we can prevent that.

The second issue is that the legislation must be prescriptive to a degree to ensure that doctors have as much certainty as possible as to when an abortion is lawful in Ireland. However, the legislation must give effect to the fact that doctors are making hard choices. These are a very small number of cases and decisions will be hard. We must trust the clinical decisions of our doctors in the best interests of both the pregnant woman and the unborn child, in accordance with the legislation and Article 40.3.3o.

I reiterate that there should be no floodgates. Suicide is not a catch-all for women who want abortion on demand. A woman is only entitled to an abortion if there is a real and substantive risk to her life, which includes a threat of suicide, and it is only if that suicide is directly linked to her pregnancy. If she is suicidal prior to the pregnancy or just suicidal in general, she will not be entitled to an abortion. It is only when that is very directly linked.