Professor Fiona de Londras:

I thank Senator Mullen. I am afraid my latin is not as good as his. However, I am agnostic about what term is used - foetal life, unborn life, prenatal life - I am happy to use any of those terms. I happen to have used foetal life here but I do not have any problem with using a different word. In terms of care for the unborn, to use the term that I take it the Senator would prefer, the point that I made repeatedly throughout my written and oral submissions - and I take it that the Senator has seen the longer submission - is that it would be open to the Oireachtas to pursue the legitimate aim of preserving unborn or foetal life and within that, to then determine how the Oireachtas considered this question of care ought best to be engaged and pursued. However, there would be limitation on that and the limitation would be the rights of pregnant persons. This is, as the Senator will appreciate, the distinction between treating preservation of foetal life as a constitutional value and giving a right to life to the unborn. It is more than, as the Senator knows, a technical distinction in terms of how the law would play out.

In respect of potential violations of international human rights law, I do not think I ever necessarily confined myself to saying that international human rights law might be developed only in order extend situations in which it might be seen that human rights protect a right to access abortion. If we were to have a limited provision in the Constitution specifying grounds or an entrenched provision, let us say, and if international human rights law were to find that, in fact, unborn life did have human rights, we would once again find ourselves, I should think, in violation of international human rights law. My point is simply that to put such provision into the Constitution prevents adaptation and, for the sake of a better word, legislative nimbleness or responsiveness when international legal obligations might change. As the Senator will know, after Vo v. France and A, B and C v. Ireland, there is not yet a clear position in Strasbourg as to whether foetal life does enjoy convention rights but there is a clear view that where a national legal system provides for access to abortion, it must have in place a system that makes it truly accessible and makes the right operational. Of course, as the Senator knows, I have a particular view on this relating to legal regulation that bears no relation to my personal, ethical view on abortion but I have been at pains in my submission to try to simply present the comparative legal position and the arguments, as asked.