Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Is it Dr. Mills's view that there should be provision for emergencies? The expert group report states, on page 36, that one doctor should be enough in an emergency. Why then is it required to have three opinions in a non-emergency? Does that not render the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights ineffective? Specifically, paragraph 267 of the A, B and C v. Ireland decision points to the need for accessible and effective procedures to vindicate the right to legal abortion.

I agree with the delegates' analysis regarding fatal foetal abnormality, which is in accordance with the Chief Justice's statement in the Roche case. In the D v. Ireland case in 2005, to which the witnesses also referred, the Government argued that there was, at the very least, a strongly tenable argument that where there was no prospect of foetal life beyond the womb, there was no right to life to be vindicated. In June last year a number of Labour Party Deputies and Senators, including me, sent a legal opinion to the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, asking that lethal foetal abnormality be included in any legislation dealing with the X case as it would not necessitate the holding of a constitutional referendum. I welcome the delegates' assessment in that regard.