Professor William Binchy:

I fully and entirely accept what it says in its redundant reiteration that the eighth amendment protects women and protects the lives of women. I have no difficulty whatsoever with that. If legislation chooses to say that, there is absolutely no difficulty with it. The aspect of the 2013 legislation which I found objectionable was that it provided for the new ground of suicidal ideation, as introduced in the decision in the X case. I opposed that on the basis of the injustice it involves and also on the basis of the empirical non-justification for that ground from the standpoint of actual empirical evidence in the health area. That is an issue for then. The committee is now looking forward to the question of whether the eighth amendment, as interpreted in the X case and as applied in the 2013 legislation, should be repealed or modified. I understand that is what the committee is dealing with at the moment.