A leading obstetrician has challenged the recommendation of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists that people should vote Yes in next week's abortion referendum.
He has strongly criticised the holding of the plebiscite as a political exercise with no medical or logical basis.
Prof Walter Prendiville, associate professor of obstetrics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and a consultant obstetrician at Tallaght and the Coombe Women's Hospital, labelled the referendum as "a silly, vacuous and unnecessary diversion and division of society".
At an Irish Times/Royal Academy of Medicine lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin last night - The Politics of Reproduction in Ireland - he said the referendum "is not about whether abortion is right or wrong nor is it about whether we should allow women to procure abortion".
Prof Prendiville, who has a special interest in preventive women's health, also noted that regardless of the outcome of the referendum, it was extremely unlikely to change the number of women choosing abortion or to change the practice of doctors in the Republic.
For a victim of rape or incest, he suggested that a Yes vote would result in her travelling to Britain if financially supported. If not, such a woman would be likely to continue with an unwanted pregnancy.
For the suicidal woman (as in the X case) Prof Prendiville noted that "this woman, about whom psychiatrists will disagree, will not be allowed to have a termination of pregnancy. If cared for and financially able, she will travel to the UK." A woman with a high risk of maternal mortality would be allowed to have a termination of pregnancy.
"Whether she will be allowed to have a termination when the pregnancy poses no threat to her life or whether she will have to wait until that pregnancy is a genuine threat to her life [when termination is more dangerous] is as yet uncertain," he added.
For the couple with a foetus that could not survive, for example an anencephalic foetus, Prof Prendiville said they would not be allowed to consider termination, "even if the diagnosis is made at 10 weeks".
Prof Prendiville said he was concerned that people may find themselves voting in the referendum in a different way to how they would act in practise.
"In the case of a girl aged 13 or 14 who has suffered rape or incest and becomes pregnant, it is my view that people will vote differently to the way they would act if it was their own daughter that was affected. In other words, they are being forced to make a black-and-white choice about grey issues."