The Government’s proposed
abortion legislation is “incompatible with the core values of human rights” because
it allows the deliberate and intentional destruction of innocent human life,
Professor William Binchy has said.

Testifying yesterday before the Oireachtas Health Committee,
Professor Binchy, formerly of Trinity College and the Irish Human Rights Commission,
said that the Bill as drafted could give rise to late term abortions where a
woman claimed to be suicidal.

Professor Binchy, who is also legal advisor to the Pro-Life Campaign, said
that Minister for Health James Reilly had claimed that the Bill would not
involve abortion of viable children in any circumstances.

Where medical treatment of
mothers was concerned, doctors had an obligation to have regard to the need to
preserve unborn human life as far as practicable should ensure that the lives of
viable children in the latter stages of pregnancy will be preserved and
nurtured.

However, he said in respect
of women who claimed to be suicidal, the bill contained no time limits.

“Here we are in an entirely
different situation,” he said.

“In medical situations where
the location of the child within its mother’s womb is causing danger to the
mother, doctors will remove the child and zealously strive to keep it alive.

“In cases of suicidal
ideation, however, the problem is deeper than one of the geographical location
of the child. In some cases the very existence of the child may be the basis of
the suicidal ideation. As long as the child lives, the problem remains. Merely
to end the pregnancy and keep the child alive will not solve those cases. On
the premise that abortion is a legitimate option in those cases, the goal must
be to terminate the life of the child.”

Professor Binchy said that
the Government’s Expert Group had argued that the Supreme Court, in speaking of
terminating the pregnancy rather than the life of the child, did not authorise
the termination of the life of a viable child and had appeared to think that
this distinction applied in cases of suicidal ideation.

But this interpretation was
hard to reconcile with the actual judgement of the Supreme Court in the X case
was inconsistent with the basis of that judgment, which was that “suicidal
ideation is a basis for the intentional taking of the life of the unborn
child”.

Dr Maria Cahill, a lecturer
in Constitutional law from University College Cork said that the legislation
appeared to be unconstitutional on the basis that the Constitution protected
all human life whereas the Government’s proposal “targets a specific subset of
those who are guaranteed a right to life under the Constitution and makes the
direct and intentional targeting of their lives lawful in certain
circumstances”.

She said that while the
legislation met the X case test of permitting abortion “where there is a real
and substantial risk to the life of the woman which can only be averted by that
medical procedure, the unborn life can be ended ‘at any time following
implantation until such time as it has completely proceeded in a living state
from the body of the woman’”.

However, Dr Cahill said that
the legislation had not taken into account other cases in which the X case test
on suicide had been applied.

She referred to one such
case, Cosma v Minister for Justice, from 2006, in which the High Court had
examined this test in the case of a woman
appealing against a deportation order on the basis that she would commit
suicide if she were deported.

The
court found that that the absence of a treatment plan for a psychiatric
condition and the fact that the person was
not undergoing therapy or counselling were relevant factors in determining how
real and substantial the risk to life was.

The court also found that
the fact that the claimant has not even considered removing the risk to life by
treatment or by some other means was
relevant to considering whether the risk could
really only be averted by the course of action she preferred.

It also held that the
Minister was entitled to take into consideration arguments of public policy, as
he had argued very vigorously in submissions that he should be, making the
point that “to permit the threat of suicide to act as a stop on the execution
of administrative decisions, such as deportation, would be to open a Pandora’s
box of potential abuse with possible effects of paralysing administrative
activity in any given area of government”.

Dr Cahill said that the
Government’s legislation failed to meet this test.

Barrister Paul Brady said
section or head 4 in the draft legislation creates for the first time a
statutory basis in Irish law for what may be a direct and intentional termination
of an unborn child’s life.

“Head 4 marks a change in
the law. I don’t think its accurate to say otherwise,” Mr Brady said.