Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As currently drafted, the Bill places a clear obligation on medical practitioners to ascertain - by the very wording of the section, and Senator Gilroy made this point - whether it is possible to deliver the unborn or, indeed, take other measures that would enable the foetus to be brought to the point of viability before the pregnancy was ended in order to save the mother's life. I remind the House that is what we are doing here. We are putting in place legislation which relates to circumstances where the mother's life is in danger - where there is a risk to her life. By the way, there is a lot of repetition of words here. There is no harm in spelling out what we mean by a risk to the mother's life. It is a risk that she will die, that she will be dead.