A legal expert has said that the new
law on abortion may be unconstitutional because it forces Catholic hospitals to
perform abortions under certain circumstances that would be against their ethos.

Dr Mark Coen, a lecturer in law at Durham
University made the comments after Fr Kevin Doran, a board member of the Mater
hospital, said he believed the hospital could not comply with the Protection of Life During Pregnancy
Act.

Dr Coen said in today’s Irish Times, “the
constitutional case law of the Irish court emphasizes that religious institutions, even if
publicly funded, may
not be forced to act in a manner which conflitcs their ethos”.

He added, “the fact that the pregnant woman has a constitutionnal right
to a termination in certain circumstances does not necessarily mean that that
right would trump the
very strong constitutional right of an institution to freedom of religion”.

Certain European directives in addition to the jurisprudence of
the European Court of Human Rights also give a degree of support to the right of a hospital to support its
pro-life ethos.

In the case of Rommelfange v. the Federal Republic of Germany ( 1989), the
European Court of Human
Rights announced that
the hospital at the centre of
the case had the right to fire a doctor who supported abortion. The court justified its decision by saying that the doctor took a public position against the
ethos of the hospital.