Professor William Binchy:

That is fine. If the Deputy reads the full article to which she referred in the ethical reproduction book, it does not actually constitute a final advocacy position at all. I very much support the eight amendment, the outcome of the 1983 referendum, and those who favour legalised abortion oppose it very much. It has been around for 34 years and it has saved many lives in these circumstances. I completely accept the international realities. The thing that is wrong with the eight amendment, as far as those who are seeking to repeal it are concerned, is that it does its job, not that it does not do its job. It has done its job quite effectively, as effectively as we could imagine an amendment, a constitutional protection, would do, in the circumstances of international realities in which we find ourselves. That is precisely why there is such an attack on it at the moment.