Ms Sinéad Kennedy:

Regarding legislation for the X case, as my colleague, Ms Ailbhe Smyth has outlined, not only do we have the 1992 Supreme Court ruling in the X case but we also had a referendum in 1992 and a further referendum in 2002. In both referenda the electorate had the opportunity to exclude suicide as grounds for an abortion in Ireland and in both cases they refused to do so. Not only do we have a Supreme Court ruling but we also have the results of two referenda that support this ruling. What we have never had is an opportunity to vote for a more liberal abortion regime in Ireland, and opinion polls in the past two decades show that increasing numbers of people support a much more liberal abortion regime in Ireland.

On the question of back-street abortion in Ireland, we are fortunate in some regard to at least have access for those women who can obtain the necessary finances to travel abroad to Britain and to other European countries. There is some access to abortion for those women but we do not know how many women are unable to travel for various financial, family and other difficult reasons. We do know that in jurisdictions where abortion is illegal and where there are not other legal alternatives, women will resort to back-street abortion. We have seen in recent years, as outlined by my colleagues in Choice Ireland, that increasing numbers of women are accessing the Internet to obtain abortion pills.

Tightening up of laws and regulations will not prevent desperate women seeking desperate solutions. The only way to be sure that we can avoid the horrific scenario of unsafe back-street abortions is to legislate for free, safe and legal abortion. That is why when we talk about this legislation we have to see it as just the first step in providing abortion rights for women because there is a danger that we will have X case legislation and we can all say that is over for another decade or until the next woman finds herself dragged through the Irish legal system. This must be understood as a bare minimum, an emergency or temporary measure, but we must examine all of the other situations that our presentations have outlined and provide real care for Irish women.