Dr. Ruth Fletcher:

There were many issues raised so forgive me if I do not get to all the points.

In response to the question whether this legal definition of "unborn" accommodates the experiences of women who would like to continue their pregnancies, if we define the unborn in this way so as to exclude foetuses with lethal abnormalities, that in no way forces women who do not want to avail of a termination to have one. All we are doing would be to enable women with pregnancies that have lethal abnormalities to end those pregnancies. That has no consequence for women who do not want to take that route. I do not accept that there is a problem on that point.

I want to comment on the idea one of the Deputies raised that mental health is subjective. We have heard so much testimony on the way mental health is clinically assessed and how it is an objective condition that people live with. However, to describe mental ill health as something that is purely subjective completely fails to acknowledge the significance of it. It is also an objective condition. Physical conditions are subjective in the sense that people interpret those physical conditions; they mean different things to different patients. Both sets of illnesses have subjective and objective elements. Patients are able to express a view about that and their medical practitioners are able to help them in assessing it. I would not want to see us going down a route of devaluing either of those sets of experiences.