Ms Marie O'Shea:

There is the tort of negligence where someone acts in breach of duty of their care. That is the common law. To exercise that right, a person has to go before a court and argue a case in adversarial proceedings. It would certainly help if there was also a breach of statutory duty there. If there was a statutory duty, if someone deliberately obstructed care or deliberately provided misleading information as to the date of the pregnancy with the expectation that the person will exceed 12 weeks, they would have another leg to stand on. It would be very clear and it would be set out what the statutory duty is.