Mr. Tom O'Malley:

I accept that the question of the kind of testing or verification process that might be deemed necessary in the event of abortion being sought on the grounds of rape would depend very much on the fundamental law that was put in place on the availability of abortion generally. If, for example, abortion was freely available for a certain period of time, this issue probably would not arise. If one eventually decided that there was going to be some sort of balancing test to be struck, as there is at present - perhaps it would not be the same test - where the right to life of the unborn was still an issue, on constitutional and other grounds it would be necessary, or at least desirable in many cases, to have some method of evaluating or validating a claim that rape had taken place as a basis for abortion.