The Taoiseach has said his proposed legislation on abortion will not prohibit a health board from assisting a woman who is threatening suicide from travelling abroad for an abortion.
In a lengthy response to queries from the Fine Gael leader Mr Michael Noonan, Mr Ahern said fear of the introduction of "social abortion" into Ireland caused him to move to rule out suicide as a ground for abortion. However, a woman in these circumstances can travel abroad for an abortion, while a woman in the care of a health board can be helped to do so by the board.
Mr Ahern also suggests it would be legally too difficult to allow abortion to rape victims. He also says it would be "not practicable" to define abortion in accordance with Catholic teaching on the taking of human life at any time after the moment of conception.
A spokesman for Mr Noonan said last night he would be studying the Taoiseach's reply over the next few days. Mr Noonan sent his queries to the Taoiseach a fortnight ago. The Fine Gael parliamentary party will hold its weekly meeting next Wednesday, but the spokesman could not say if that meeting would consider the issue in the light of Mr Ahern's replies.
In his 20 page reply to Mr Noonan's 34 questions, Mr Ahern says that allowing for abortion where suicide is threatened by a pregnant woman would "start an inevitable and unstoppable slide toward 'social abortion' in Ireland . . . If legal provision were made for suicide risk a system of psychiatric assessment and court supervision would, almost inevitably, follow. If that were to happen, even if it were initially done on a narrow basis, the scene would be set for a gradual introduction of 'social abortion' in Ireland." However, he says such a woman can go abroad for an abortion. "The coming into effect of the Act in no way reduces the right of any such woman to travel."
He also points to difficulties he says would arise if abortion were to be allowed in the case of a woman made pregnant as a result of rape. He lists a series of problems which, he says, would emerge such as what level of proof would be required to show that the act leading to pregnancy had been non-consensual.
Asked about the position of a woman pregnant as a result of incest he says the envisaged legislation "makes no distinction between pregnancies which result from incest or from other circumstances". He also defends the definition of abortion as applying to the destruction of a fertilised ovum only after implantation in the womb of a woman. This definition runs contrary to Catholic teaching.
However, Mr Ahern says it is "not practicable to attempt to protect by the criminal law of abortion the fertilised ovum prior to implantation in the womb of a woman". Nevertheless, this does not mean that human life before implantation is unprotected by the Constitution, he said. The 1983 abortion amendment, Article 40.3.3., would not necessarily only apply to unborn human life after implantation.
The Labour Party leader Mr Ruair∅ Quinn last night challenged Mr Ahern's view that the Bill as published would allow only registered medical practitioners to carry out terminations of pregnancy where the woman's life was in danger. A drafting error, he said, left it technically open to anyone to carry out such a procedure.
Mr Quinn said that while this defect could be corrected, it pointed up that there could be other defects, and that therefore it was unwise to enact a Bill that could only be subsequently altered by referendum.