Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The main purpose of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 is to restate the general prohibition on abortion in Ireland in line with Article 40.3.3° of the Constitution while regulating access to lawful termination of pregnancy in accordance with the X case and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the A, B and C v. Ireland case.

Section 22 which lays out the offence specifies, “It shall be an offence to intentionally destroy unborn human life.” Amendment No. 4 is, therefore, unnecessary and I do not propose to accept it.

Amendments Nos. 37 and 38 concern the issue of viability. The Bill makes reference to a medical practitioner's reasonable opinion which places a statutory duty on each medical practitioner required to form an opinion for the purpose of the legislation to have regard to the need to preserve unborn human life as far as practicable. This is a direct quotation from Article 40.3.3°. This imposes a clear duty on medical practitioners to make every effort to preserve the life of a foetus that may be viable. Not to do so would mean a medical practitioner would be in breach of the proposed legislation and subject to its penalties.

However, we do not wish to be prescriptive about specific procedures to be followed in making the required efforts to preserve the life of the foetus. The purpose of the legislation is not to regulate obstetric procedures which do not constitute termination of pregnancy or to dictate the practice of obstetrics. Standard medical practice will provide appropriate mechanisms for assessments of both the woman and the unborn. It would not be appropriate to include this or other details of medical treatments in legislation. For those reasons, I cannot accept these amendments.