If one believes the baby will live for 29 days or longer, one is no longer protected by the law and will be looking at sections 5 and 6. These sections suggest that if one gets that wrong, a prison sentence of up to 14 years may apply. That is an impossible situation to put any doctor in.

Where I agree fully with the Minister is on the need for absolute clarity for medics, including midwives, nurses, doctors and parents. The place for that is surely the guidelines, which are reviewable and within the remit of the medical world. I suggest the Minister could bring forward an amendment on Report Stage to provide for the presence of a fatal foetal condition. That would allow the woman, or parents, and the doctor to talk about that. They could decide case-by-case on the best way to proceed. While the Minister is not trying to act incorrectly, he has got this one wrong. The real application of this as the legislation begins to reach into medical decision-making and operating theatres will be wrong. If 28 days is what medical practitioners want and is what the institutes are suggesting, that is great. In that case, let them or us put that in the appropriate guidelines. Putting it in the law, however, removes the protection of the law once the medical practitioner gets it wrong. It will mean medical practitioners will err very much on the side of safety. Therefore, I ask the Minister to accept amendment No. 36 and to accept my amendment No. 70, which does the same thing to the actual section. I ask him to do so on the very clear understanding that he will come back on Report Stage with a view to placing the matter within the remit of guidelines and doing whatever else needs to be done to provide clarity and to avoid this very dangerous and impossible timeline or call for a practitioner to make in certain circumstances.