Dr. Berry Kiely:

As most of the questions the Deputy raised have been answered, I will confine my remarks to the one that was not answered, which was from Deputy Conway. We had a clear message from the obstetricians that they have no difficulty acting within current legal guidelines to do whatever is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

That is one of the most important and clear messages members have received in the past two days. The obstetricians gave specific figures as to how often the procedures in question might occur. That was extraordinarily helpful.

One individual raised the issue of referring to England women who did not fit within the aforementioned category. This is outside the committee's brief because it does not come within the test of the X case. The X case was one in which the woman's life was at risk. Furthermore, it was a question of her life only being savable by terminating or ending the pregnancy. This leads to the question of values. The truth is that one will find that within the medical community, as within the legal community, people have different values. I refer in particular to the value attached to the life of the unborn. There is a danger in thinking that doctors all think the same way about all sorts of issues.

I received last night a copy of an e-mail that I believe the Chairman received from a number of obstetricians.