Dr. Rhona Mahony:

The first thing to say is that doctors are very regulated. We have not just Medical Council guidelines but also HSE and national guidelines to help and assist us to provide optimum care to our patients. We cannot be negligent: we have to provide good, sound clinical care and there is good regulation in this country to ensure that doctors practise appropriately. The issue with obstetric medicine is that not a lot of other areas of medicine have an insert in the Constitution that has such an effect on clinical practice. Going back to the 1983 referendum, there was difficulty in choosing that wording and trying to determine its consequences. The number of subsequent referenda that have taken place - on the right to information, for example, or the right to travel - shows that we have done more or less everything to circumnavigate this issue without actually dealing with the effect of the eighth amendment on clinical care. This is something that Ireland really needs to deal with because I believe that the presence of the eighth amendment in the Constitution creates substantial clinical risk.

There are other options. There are many different examples all over Europe of countries choosing to legislate in different ways, from highly restrictive legislation in countries like Malta; fairly restrictive legislation in Germany; to more open legislation in other countries. It is really for the people of Ireland to decide on the legislation. Whatever path is chosen, what we as doctors require is clinical flexibility in order that women and their doctors can make appropriate decisions in the very difficult circumstances that arise from complications in pregnancy.