Professor Veronica O'Keane:

That is a really pragmatic question. I cannot represent my profession before the committee today; I am simply an individual. However, there are general principles that apply to this as they apply to all of medicine, and it is worth repeating them.

Risk is unpredictable, especially risk where someone is in a situation of extreme emotional vulnerability. Such a woman is vulnerable because she is pregnant and because she has an unwanted pregnancy. If she is looking for abortion care, she is vulnerable because she is going down a pathway in which she will absolutely need support, although it is an autonomous decision. Such a woman ought to have care provided to her on that journey, including counselling and care for whatever other psychological requirements she may have. We need a framework that is not restrictive - that is the main principle. We need something that will allow clinicians to practise flexible best practices. A clinician cannot practice good medicine with a document like the one in my hand standing over her. A clinician cannot practice good medicine by saying to a woman in every second sentence that she can do something but she should bear in mind that there is a constitutional prohibition. A clinician working in a very circumscribed and highly legalised area where she has to get three, four or five opinions is the polar opposite to what we require. For doctors to practise, we need the prohibition to be removed from the Constitution. We need repeal of the eighth amendment. Then, we need flexible legislation that will reflect the unpredictability and unforeseeable situations that arise in clinical practice.

Pathways cannot be exact. The idea that a woman can walk into any psychiatrist or doctor and then be referred to three specialists within 24 hours and have a legal termination within a few days does not work. It simply does not work like that. We must have a legal framework that will free us and liberate us to practise medicine and psychiatry. At the moment we are working against obstacles. It is an obstacle race that we are trying to negotiate.