Professor William Binchy:

I would not use that language and I have not used it in my presentation to the committee because one can use absolutely non-emotive, factual, descriptive language. It is true to say that the monitoring committees is in favour of legalised abortion in the wide-ranging circumstances that have been described. That is not a question of a false assertion; that is very definitely what it proposes. If one were to suggest that it did otherwise, its members would be grossly offended. It is not to vilify them, to allege that they are biased or have an agenda - that is their approach. That is their value system. They attach it then to the human rights treaties and, as Senator Mullen rightly said, the Convention on the Rights of the Child includes in its preamble the reference to the protection of children before birth. Why was that there? It was there to attract the support of countries with a protection of unborn life in terms of their laws so that they would ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which of course they did.