In the wake of the evidence presented by psychiatrists who addressed the recent Oireachtas committee on abortion, it is evident that the Government’s argument that abortion is necessary in the event of threatened suicide in pregnancy has been unequivocally rejected.
The psychiatrists who addressed the hearing were unanimous that abortion is not a treatment for the threat of suicide in pregnancy. If the Government were now to proceed to legislate along the lines of the X Case ruling they would be doing so against best medical advice and indeed opening the State up to potential charges of negligence.
Given the compelling psychiatric evidence presented to the committee, it’s hardly surprising – even if tragically ironic – that Britain’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), openly acknowledges in its own publication Abortion Review the de facto reality on the ground when it states: “It is not the case that the majority of women seeking abortion are necessarily at risk of damaging their mental health if they continue their pregnancy. But it is significant, because of the law that women and their doctors have to indicate that this is the case.”
Indeed, there can be little wonder therefore why Lord David Steel, the architect of the UK’s Abortion Act, recently stated that it would be “a mistake” for Ireland to introduce abortion on the grounds of threatened suicide, adding that he “never envisaged there would be so many abortions” in Britain resulting from the law he introduced.
John Lupton Jr
Roscrea, Co Tipperary
