Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the guests. I get confused about who is who in the medical world. I have a very straightforward question for Dr. Sadlier of the Irish Medical Organisation. Notwithstanding the fact that we all have to work within whatever is, or may be, the law, could he confirm that the official position of his organisation, as per its recent conference, is one of opposition to this piece of legislation, yes or no?

I have a question for Professor Murphy of the Irish Medical Council. The Medical Council guidelines are quite interesting. They are referred to from time to time when constituents on all sides of the argument meet us. The Medical Council guidelines prescribe that abortion is legal arising from the X case where there is risk to the life of the mother, including the risk of suicide. Interestingly, the guidelines go on to demand of practitioners that such a risk must be evidence-based. I trust that over the course of the years since those guidelines have been passed, such risk has been examined and determined. Could he inform us of the result of that examination of risk?

Professor McAuliffe and Dr. O’Riordan, who made very interesting contributions, both strongly expressed a view that they hoped the proposed legislation would be dealing with very rare cases. The reason we are here, when we remove all the waffle, is the political dispute over head 4 and the risk of suicide.

When we remove all of the waffle, we are here because of the political dispute over head 4 on the risk of suicide. The constitutional amendment, per the Supreme Court, allows the right of abortion where the threat of suicide can only be resolved by abortion, not where it is just one possible treatment. Has any member of the panel or any of their colleagues encountered a case in which an abortion was the only treatment for a threatened suicide?