Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. Thompson for his presentation. I would like to acknowledge the fact that the legal and health care systems in the UK cater for a significant number of Irish women, and has done so for decades. Given our experience with mother and baby homes and Magdalen laundries, we are not in a position to be shouting from the rooftop in terms of how women have been treated in this country.

I want to ask Mr. Thompson about future proofing.

I take the point Mr. Thompson has made in respect of being overly specific about conditions. Obviously things have changed from a socioeconomic point of view. Very often people are delaying pregnancies and are availing of assisted reproduction. Sometimes there are twins or triplets in a multiple pregnancy. What impact has that had? Mr. Thompson made a point on a co-twin benefitting from the procedure. I presume that would happen in a situation where neither twin would be born alive without that intervention. In the area of future-proofing legislation, in Mr. Thompson's experience are there aspects of law which we must consider in that regard? The current situation is that there is an equal right to life. That right would probably extend to a situation wherein there were twins, neither of whom would survive without intervention. I am trying to think about this from a legal perspective.