Abortion committee row over claims FG ignored assembly report

Charges by Solidarity/People Before Profit TDs that Fine Gael had made efforts to ignore some of the Citizens’ Assembly’s abortion recommendations have been rejected as “absurd”.

Relations between the sides serving on the all-party Oireachtas committee debating changes to Ireland’s abortion laws have significantly worsened following a meeting yesterday.

Later, Solidarity/People before Profit TDs Ruth Coppinger and Brid Smith claimed they had succeeded in getting several parts of the committee’s upcoming work changed to better reflect the assembly’s report.

“If we hadn’t challenged it we could have been left with a really narrow remit that wouldn’t have been in keeping with the spirit of the Citizens’ Assembly,” Ms Coppinger said. The committee’s chair, Catherine Noone, had sought to focus on “minor cases of rape and fatal foetal anomalies”.

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“We said there is a woman at stake here,” she went on.

Pro-choice views

Rejecting the charges as “absurd”, Ms Noone, who will chair the committee during its six months of deliberations, said it had been formed to consider the assembly’s recommendations.

"It's absurd to say I'm trying to exclude recommendations of the assembly. That's what we've been asked to consider," Ms Noone, who holds pro-choice views, told The Irish Times.

Some issues would clearly need expert medical opinion, which should be sought quickly since some medical experts could be difficult to get, which is why she suggested that appointments should be made early.

“It’s absurd to say I am trying to exclude things. My primary and only wish is to outline a programme of work that all sides and none can agree on,” Ms Noone said.

The assembly voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitutional ban and recommended that the law be changed so that abortion be made widely available.

The committee’s public hearings will begin in September and it must make its final report to the Oireachtas by the end of the year. The Government and the Oireachtas must then decide if there is to be a referendum on abortion next year. While there is broad political consensus that a referendum is likely next year, it is far from clear what the exact question will be, or to what degree laws should be liberalised.