Mr. David Manley:

On behalf of Family and Life I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it today and to allow us to contribute to its deliberations. I hope that I and my colleague, Mr. Patrick Carr, will be helpful to the committee.

What follows is a much shortened version of the written opening statement which has been circulated. The issue of abortion is characterised as being divisive and indeed this is so. There is, however, a large area of agreement and common ground. Everyone, I assume, is in agreement that women in Ireland should receive whatever medical care they require in pregnancy. At the same time there is a large majority of Irish people who would like to see the protection of unborn human life continue.

Provided that people are reassured that such protection will not have any weakening effect on medical care provided to pregnant women, all but a small number are content to see the comprehensive prohibition of abortion in Ireland. I use the word "abortion" in the commonly understood sense and I am aware of the confusion that surrounds this word.

In the 2010 case of A, B and C v. Ireland, the European Court of Human Rights did not require Ireland to legalise abortion. The court required the Government to put in place procedures that are effective and accessible for women. It made no stipulation as to what the legal status of these procedures should be. Following the decision of the European Court in that case, the Government established an expert group to lay out the options available to it. Unfortunately and for reasons not altogether clear, the expert group's remit was restricted to giving advice, "on how to give effect to existing constitutional provisions". In other words, it limited itself to options giving effect to the Constitution and the X case judgment.

The 1992 judgment of the Supreme Court in the X case is - and in my view, will remain - the source of our current legal difficulty and social controversy until such time as its suicide provision is removed. The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights only requires Ireland to address the perceived lack of clarity in its law on abortion. In reality, the clarity which the court requires can be provided without enshrining in statute law a principle that allows for the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being; in other words, the suicide provision. I depend very much on Professor William Binchy's testimony yesterday.

It is clear from the testimony given by prominent obstetricians who have come before this committee that further clarity is desirable indeed. However, it is important to note that whatever lack of clarity currently exists and which existed previously clearly did not prevent doctors in Ireland from providing women in pregnancy with the high standard of medical care they need.

It is regrettable that the Government has prematurely committed itself to a course of action without the benefit of the valuable testimony that has been presented to this committee over the recent days and without the benefit of the work of this committee. This is particularly the case since the course of action chosen involves legislation giving statutory effect to the suicide provision of the X case. All the psychiatrists who testified before this committee agreed that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal threat. Predicting who will take their lives is not a workable project. The idea that the lives of some human beings are less valuable than those of others has no place in Irish law. The Constitution of Ireland recognises the fundamental equality of all human beings. To their abiding credit, at a time when so many other countries were moving in the opposite direction, the Irish people in 1983 made explicit that this equality extends to the most vulnerable of human beings, the unborn. The European Court of Human Rights recognised that the Irish people's decision was based, "on profound moral values concerning the nature of life which have not been demonstrated to have relevantly changed since then." I believe there are some promises that should not be broken. The Government has no mandate to legislate for direct and intentional killing of unborn children. To do so would be to make a law that would be fundamentally unjust, violating the most basic of human rights.