Professor Fiona de Londras:

To pick up on the matter of other constitutions that specify grounds, my understanding is that Dr. Kenny is right; there are just the three countries he mentioned - Kenya, Somalia and Swaziland.

Somalia's is very limited. It is a case of necessity, especially to save the life of the pregnant person, whereas in Kenya it is an emergency risk to life and a risk to health. In Swaziland there is a longer list of serious risks to physical and mental health, including a serious risk that the child would - please accept this language as it is a quote - "be irreparably seriously handicapped". In all cases one doctor certifies and, as far as I understand, no medical certification is required, but I do not know whose certification is required in cases involving rape, incest or unlawful sex with - again this is a direct quote - "a mentally retarded woman". The Kenyan and Swaziland provisions, to the best of my knowledge, are relatively recent – within the last decade – and in neither case has legislation been passed to give effect to them; therefore, in both states, in fact, abortion services are largely inaccessible. My understanding is the UN Population Fund and other organisations document extremely high levels of illegal abortions in these jurisdictions.

As regards other European states and constitutional courts, there are some courts that have dealt with similar issues. It is perhaps particularly interesting to talk a little about the Slovak Republic because in that jurisdiction there is a recognition that prenatal life is worthy of protection, but there is no right to life. The way the court has dealt with that issue is to state regulation of abortion is permissible but that one cannot disturb the essence of the rights women hold under the constitution. That is not wholly dissimilar to something like the approach taken by the US Supreme Court that one cannot place undue burdens on women in accessing abortion services or proportionality. There will be degrees of whether an essence is less or more than a proportionality approach, but that approach is relatively common. It might be worth noting that the German constitutional court relatively early on in its jurisprudence on abortion did recognise a prenatal right to life, but it has progressively accepted that it does not preclude making abortion services available within certain schemata or certain limitations. The constitutional courts of Austria, France, the Netherlands, the Slovak Republic and Portugal – the list may be longer, but that is my understanding of it - have all refused to recognise a prenatal right to life.

Have I answered all of the questions asked?