A senior member of the Fine Gael party has dismissed as “legal fiction” the contention that it may be possible to simultaneously retain the constitutional protection for the unborn and allow for abortion in cases of children with life-limiting conditions. In so doing, he has given his backing to the retention of Ireland’s pro-life amendment also known as the ‘Eighth Amendment’.

Writing in The Irish Catholic, Barry Walsh, the Vice Chair of the Fine Gael Executive Council wrote: “On one level, this proposal [to allow abortions when a baby will die soon after birth] is a legal fiction, since it will be impossible to formulate a constitutional definition for something for which medical science cannot diagnose with any certainty.

“But it also ignores a fundamental moral and political conundrum,” he said, adding that any such referendum “would essentially ask the Irish people to reaffirm the general right to life of all citizens, including children in the womb, but to strip the right to life from a small number of children for the sole reason that they have been diagnosed with a serious illness”.

“The true measure of any society is how it treats its sick and vulnerable.

“You don’t have to be a Catholic, or even religious, to see the fundamental inhumanity at the heart of this proposal,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the Pro-Life Campaign (PLC) has rounded on the Master of the National Maternity Hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony, for her recent call for a referendum towards legislating for abortion in cases of life-limiting conditions.

In a statement, Cora Sherlock, PLC’s deputy chairperson said that Dr Mahony “does not represent the many doctors in Ireland who do not believe that abortion should be made available in these cases and who recognise the enormous benefits to the family of carrying a baby to full term”.

“Families who have been through this experience speak of the precious memories that they made when meeting their babies even for a short time.”

She added that it is “vital that doctors who believe that abortion is never something which should be advocated speak up now as there is a real danger of the public coming to the conclusion that there is agreement among the medical profession that a referendum should be held”.

“In reality, nothing could be further from the truth,” she insisted.