A group of early 200 lawyers has confirmed that, if the Eighth Amendment is repealed, the Government’s planned legislation would allow abortion on request up to six months. The lawyers, including former Judge of the European Court Aindreas O’Caoimh and former Chairman of the Referendum Commission, Iarfhlaith O’Neill, dismissed any contrary interpretation as having “no rational basis.”

In a prepared statement, the group compared the legislation which the Government proposed and that which was put in place in Great Britain in 1967, and concluded that both permitted abortion on request, even where the unborn was healthy and close to the point of being able to live outside the womb. Comments made by prominent ‘Yes’ campaigners like Dr. Peter Boylan supported this analysis, the group said.

The lawyers also rejected comments by Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin which suggested the Government’s proposals were necessary to deal with the hard cases of rape, incest, and fatal foetal abnormality. “It was open to the Government to amend the article in the Constitution instead of repealing it and introduce legislation which solely addressed exceptional cases. Instead, they yielded to pressure from extremists who wanted to sweep away the rights of the unborn completely and introduce a wide-ranging right to abortion.”

One of the signatories, Venetia Taylor, BL, said that she would have voted ‘Yes’ had the proposals been limited to exceptional cases. Instead, she said, the only way to stop a “profound injustice” was to join her colleagues in urging a ‘No’ vote.

“Women deserve better than this”, she said. “Irish society deserves better than this. That is why I am voting ‘No’.”