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(d) Abortion for Economic or Social Reasons. Under this option abortion would be permitted where certain specified criteria regarding a woman's social or family circumstances were met.
The statistics and research indicate that the great majority of abortions carried out in Britain on Irish women are performed for social reasons.
In practical terms it would not be possible to put a provision of this type in place and at the same time to confine its application to only a small number of cases. Therefore it must be seen as putting in place a relatively liberal regime in relation to abortion.
The experience of other countries indicates that, because of the general way in which provisions of this type are expressed, they tend to enable women to obtain an abortion without undue difficulty. By their very nature such provisions are usually intended to have this effect.
(e) Abortion on Request. This option would permit abortion where a woman requested it.
Where an arrangement of this type exists in other countries it is usually subject to a gestational time limit and consultation or counselling requirements, (e.g., in Austria or Denmark, up to the twelfth week of pregnancy). However, in effect no other constraint would be in place to prevent a woman obtaining an abortion.
Discussion of Options
The purpose of this chapter has been to set out a range of possible constitutional and legislative approaches for consideration. In doing this it draws on the work of the Constitution Review Group.
Reference has also been made to possible problems of definition associated with the text of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution and the ethical guidelines issued by the Medical Council.
The discussion has identified advantages and disadvantages with each of the options. The question as to which, if any, of the approaches discussed in the foregoing is feasible and would find majority support is one for further debate. The Government is conscious that when these issues have previously been discussed publicly, prior to the 1983 and 1992 referendums, the debate became bitter and polarised, and it is anxious if possible to avoid a repetition of the type of debate which characterised those campaigns.
It is hoped that by setting out the options in this Green Paper, the debate this time around will not be characterised with the previous acrimony.
An underlying feature which arises in the context of further debate is that there are major differences between those who hold the view that the Constitution should contain a provision which has the effect of prohibiting abortion and those who consider that the Constitution is not the appropriate vehicle to address the complex issues involved. On the one hand, those seeking a prohibition consider that the Constitution is the appropriate means of ensuring that human life is protected from its earliest stages and that such a fundamental issue as the right to life is not left in the hands of the legislature. On the other, it can be argued that such an approach seeks to circumscribe unnecessarily the elected representatives of the people in the discharge of their functions as legislators.
It is accepted, however, that widely different approaches exist in many countries as to the issues which are appropriate to parliamentary decision and which are referred to the people in referendums. An issue which will require further attention, if further constitutional change is under consideration, is what type of wording for an amendment will accurately provide what is intended and would have majority support. While a range of suggested wordings has been put forward either for additions to the current Article 40.3.3 or replacement of it, it is not considered that this Green Paper should attempt to weigh up the effects which any of these wordings, if adopted, would have. If further constitutional change is proposed, the merit or demerit of such a proposal depends exclusively on the wording suggested for such an amendment. Any amendment will have legal effects depending on its wording. Each and every possible legal effect of any amendment must be considered very carefully.
It is also worth bearing in mind that the current Article has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in a manner which many people would not have considered possible, when the wording for it was being debated in the early 1980s.
For the people to judge wisely between arguments for and against an amendment of the Constitution, the debate must focus on the details of the amendment rather than its principle.
The desire of many people to ensure that there can be no abortion in Ireland in any circumstances, while appearing at first sight to be simple to achieve, encounters difficulties when the medical issues are discussed.
While there are considerable differences of opinion in the medical profession as to whether there are any circumstances, even very rare ones, where a pregnancy may have to be terminated so as to save a mother's life, the international scientific literature does note situations where elective termination was performed to protect the life of the mother. In 1992 the then Government took the approach that, if there is even a very slight chance that such a termination might be necessary, the Constitution should not prohibit it.
The Government is also conscious that the debate on the constitutional and legal issues which will take place arises against the background of very significant numbers of Irish women having abortions in England and Wales each year. It is firmly of the view that this issue must be addressed and that every effort must be made to offer women with crisis pregnancies realistic and practical options along the lines discussed elsewhere in the Green Paper, so they will feel that they have real alternatives to abortion.