Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In what way? If someone has a better proposal as to how this can be done, he or she can tell us what it is now and we can consider it. As regards saying we would review it, under the Constitution one cannot have a sunset clause in legislation. One either passes legislation by voting for it or one does not. The other thing about it is that what the Oireachtas enacts, it can repeal at some point in the future. Therefore, I do not agree with the Deputy.

As regards the test, there is a constitutional imperative for everybody involved to have regard to the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. Deputy Byrne asked the question succinctly and received a succinct answer. That is at the heart of the legislation. It is a constitutional imperative that the doctors involved must have regard to the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. That is why we say it is not a right to kill the unborn or destroy the foetus. It is a right on the mother's part, in certain circumstances set out in the legislatin, to have a termination of her pregnancy. The two are not the same.

To come back to the point on whether there is another way of doing this, we cannot adjust the test downwards. If we say there is a real and substantial risk to the mother's life, that is clear. If it can only be averted through a termination, that is clear. We then have a legitimate concern about what the implications might be for a viable foetus. That is a legitimate concern to raise, but the answer to it cannot be to adjust in some way the test that the woman has already, as it were, passed - if I can use that term. In other words, it has already been certified that there is genuinely a real and substantial risk to her life, or is it being suggested that, in circumstances where there is a legitimate concern about the unborn, we should revisit the test of whether there is a real and substantial risk to her life? There either is or there is not a real and substantial risk to her life. That cannot be varied as a result of something happening on the other side of the equation, if I can put it that way.