Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

With respect to the Minister's response, I think he misunderstands what the Constitution does. He is correct that it gives protection to the life of unborn, but the point that has been raised by other legal opinion is that where there is no life to protect, the constitutional protection no longer applies. That is why fatal foetal abnormalities and inevitable miscarriages are potentially provided for within the remit of the restrictive constitutional provision.

I respect what the Minister states, that no diagnosis is ever inevitable, but that is the same for every medical procedure. The doctor makes the decision based on the best information that he or she has available.

The key problem with the Minister's line of argument is that many legal persons would have a different view. Critically, not only is he not dealing with it by defining the unborn as he is choosing to define it in this legislation, he is making it more difficult to deal with this issue in any other subsequent legislation which he states he supports because by defining unborn human life as existing from the moment of implantation in the womb and giving that protection, he is ruling out a potential for resolving this issue later on.

This Bill will probably be appealed to the Supreme Court anyway. It is not a reason for not proceeding.