The Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has slammed the Government for “systematically ignoring all of the expert psychiatric evidence presented at the recent Oireachtas hearings on abortion”.

In a statement following the Government’s publication of the heads of an abortion Bill on Tuesday night, it said that the Oireachtas had heard “unanimous expert evidence that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal ideation”.

The Bill, which is based on the 1992 X Case ruling, provides for the right to have an abortion where three doctors, one obstetricians and two psychiatrists, judge that there is a real and substantial risk that a woman is suicidal.

Commenting on the heads of the Bill, PLC spokeswoman Caroline Simons said that there was “no evidence that abortion ever helps women’s mental health and in fact it may damage women”.

Ms Simons said: “It is pathetic that the Fine Gael leadership has caved in to Labour, allowing ideology to win out over evidence.”

Last week, 113 psychiatrists agreed a statement saying the Government should not include a suicide provision in its legislation.

The bill will also force any Catholic hospitals with maternity wards to carry out abortions.

Commenting on this aspect of the Bill, David Quinn of the Iona Institute this was “an extremely far-reaching and unprecedented attack on Catholic hospitals”.

Mr Quinn said the legislation would oblige Catholic hospitals “to carry out what it calls ‘lawful terminations’”.

He said: “This could easily force them to do what they believe is wrong and unjust. Even countries with very liberal abortion laws generally don’t go this far. It is a direct challenge to religious freedom by a government which barely seems to believe in the concept.”

Ms Simons added that claims made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Minister for Health James Reilly that the legislation was very restrictive were “empty and misleading”.

She said: “What matters is what’s contained in the Bill and what’s in the Bill is dangerous. For the first time an Irish government is proposing to introduce a law that provides for the direct intentional targeting of the life of the unborn child.

She described the proposed safeguard requiring three doctors to sign off on abortion as “utter nonsense”.

Ms Simons said: “All it takes is three pro-choice doctors to sign off on every request and all restrictiveness is gone. It is an insult to women and their unborn babies to pretend that it could operate in an evidence-based manner.

“The Government has claimed all along that there is no option but to legislate. This is untrue. If the Government were really concerned about protecting women’s lives and respecting the unborn, we would have appropriate guidelines drawn up to assist doctors in various cases. The law already protects good medicine and life-saving treatments.

“When all the Government spin is discounted, the proposal stands exposed as an abortion regime based on a threat of suicide that flies in the face of all the evidence.”