Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to be helpful. There will be doctors meeting in other rooms trying to put together the clinical guidelines on how to interpret whatever legislation we pass. We want our doctors to follow the clinical guidelines of their medical colleges rather than the textual lines of our legislation. I am happy to reflect on this matter, but we have to be conscious of how doctors and the wider medical community would respond to and interpret such a definition and what difference, if any, they believed it could make. As well as this being a legislative issue, it is also a clinical one, as clinicians will make these decisions.

We must remember that this only becomes an issue beyond 12 weeks. Up to 12 weeks, no specific indication is required. This section of the legislation deals with a serious risk to the woman's health. We were clear in trying to define that as including mental health and making that definition beyond reproach. I believe we are all largely happy with that. Apart from accepting that the amendment's provision is the WHO's definition, what difference would it make when a clinician is trying to interpret it, if any? I will take clinicians' counsel on this as well.