The majority of Irish adults support legislating for the X case, a poll has shown.
The poll was conducted by Red C for The Sunday Business Post on a sample of over 1000 adults nationwide last week.
According to the paper, 85 per cent of those polled supported legislating for the X case by allowing abortion where the mother’s life is threatened, including by suicide.
There was support among 63 per cent of those polled for a limiting the X case by excluding the threat of suicide as grounds.
There was 82 per cent support for extending abortion to all cases where the mother's health is seriously threatened and in cases of rape, the paper reports.
The poll follows weeks of public discussion on abortion in the wake of the death of Savita Halappanavar (31) at Galway University Hospital on October 28th of septicaemia.
She had been 17 weeks pregnant when she presented a week earlier at the hospital's maternity unit with back-pain. She was found to be miscarrying and, says her husband, Praveen, asked repeatedly for a termination of the pregnancy over a three-day period. He says this was refused as there was a foetal heartbeat present and "this is a Catholic country".
The poll also shows a sharp decline in support for Fine Gael, which is down six points to 28 per cent since the newspaper’s last poll. Support for Government coalition partner Labour is up by one point to 14 per cent.
Independents and others have seen the biggest increase and are four points to 21 per cent. Fianna Fáil has also seen a slight rise and is up one point to 20 per cent. There is no change for Sinn Fein.
