James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

These amendments deal with cases in which a pregnancy results from rape or incest and are an attempt to legislate for lawful termination of pregnancy in such cases. I cannot accept them. The main purpose of the Bill is to restate the general prohibition on abortion in Ireland while regulating access to lawful termination of pregnancy in accordance with the X case judgment and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the A, B and C v. Ireland case. Its purpose is to confer procedural rights on a woman who believes she has a life-threatening condition in order that she can have certainty as to whether she requires this treatment. While the Bill does not permit the termination of a pregnancy on the grounds of rape or incest alone, it is permitted if there is also a risk to the life of a woman. The Bill provides for existing rights only - that is, within the constitutional provisions and the Supreme Court judgment in the X case. It does not confer new substantive rights to termination of pregnancy.

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