The Pro-Life Campaign yesterday welcomed the Green Paper and called for the Taoiseach to honour his commitment to hold a referendum within the lifetime of this Government.
At a press conference in Dublin, members of the campaign advocated a complete ban on abortion and said they envisaged that the Oireachtas committee should decide on the issue within months.
Prof William Binchy stressed that the campaign would not be acrimonious and disagreed with the tactics of other antiabortion groups that had caused bitterness in the past.
Asked if the first option in the working paper for a complete ban on abortion was what the Pro-Life Campaign wanted, Prof Binchy agreed. "We're glad to see that in this working paper the option we favour is put forward, is fully discussed, the arguments that surround it, the strengths and weaknesses debated."
"We're pleased to see that our option has a central position in the paper and I think that any reasonable person reading the paper, start to finish, 140 pages or thereabouts, and the substantive argument, would come to the view that effectively the view that we are putting forward is the only solution."
If a ban on abortion could be brought in by legislation they would be delighted; if, for example, the Supreme Court took another decision which would reverse its ruling in the X case. The problem was the Supreme Court decided as it did and the only solution was of a constitutional nature.
He said he did not think the campaign would be acrimonious. "The Pro-Life Campaign has always sought a calm, reasonable debate." Asked about other organisations and their tactics, he said he would welcome their support for the campaign position on condition that all debate be reasonable and respectful of other views. The campaign had always expressed disagreement with activities such as picketing and strategies that were inconsistent with debate.
Ms Caroline Simons, Pro-Life Campaign spokeswoman, said there was a whole new generation since 1983, and what happened then was irrelevant. The working paper was a very thoughtful document, but it was only a discussion paper, a starting point, at which the Oireachtas committee would look.
"We want open discussion, we want honesty, we want all the issues discussed and I think we have a very good starting point in this document," she said.
Asked if she considered that the Taoiseach's strategy was to put it on the long finger, she said: "The Taoiseach has this paper now. He knows that there have been opinion polls. There were 10,000 submissions on this paper, the vast majority of which were looking for a clear referendum." The Government was not committed to anything yet. The Oireachtas committee would decide.
Prof Binchy said the facts of life were that 70 per cent of the electorate wanted the matter resolved by way of referendum. That was a statistic that had cropped up over the last 71/2 years and it had not varied.
He was asked what would happen to the Pro-Life Campaign if the Government decided to frame a black-and-white question, "Do you want a ban on abortion in all circumstances?", to the people, and less than 50 per cent of the population agreed.
"We would accept the will of the people in this area . . . That is the issue that we want put to the people. We would accept the will of the people. It does not mean that one would not continue to advocate on behalf of the unborn, because the unborn are members of the human community," he said.
Asked what time frame he envisaged for the Oireachtas committee to make its decision, Prof Binchy said he would have thought it was a matter that could be dealt with in months.
"What's interesting about this paper is that it does not contain new information. It is old information. It is not a criticism of it, but it does not contain new analysis in the sense of raising legal issues or medical issues that have not been raised before. There were no novel points that would raise concerns," he said.
The campaign's attitude was to encourage the Government to bring this matter to a democratic resolution. It was not in the business of giving out ultimatums. It would see it in months rather than years.
Prof Binchy said 70 per cent of the population was in favour of a referendum, and it was the Pro-Life Campaign judgment that the majority were in favour of a ban on abortion. Several polls had been taken which showed people did not want abortion.
"We know exactly what we want, which is that existing medical practice, which takes place in Irish hospitals every day within half-a-mile of where we're sitting, gets legal protection. That's all we're asking for, that the unborn are protected from a direct attack on their lives in the form of abortion, that their mothers receive all necessary medical treatment," he said.
The anti-abortion group, Youth Defence, said it was in favour of the first option in the working paper, that there should be an absolute ban on abortion.
Mr Justin Barrett said there should be no difficulty in finding a wording based on the conclusion that abortion was never medically necessary. The only difficulty in finding a wording came if there was a proposal for limited abortion.
He called on the Taoiseach to implement the referendum. Asked about acrimony and tactics which had been criticised in the past, Mr Barrett said any acrimony came from pro-abortion groups. He considered that Youth Defence tactics in the past had fuelled public reaction and drawn attention to the truth about abortion.
As far as it was concerned, it was now in the run-up to a referendum and would be focusing on that from now on. It was undecided as yet about what tactics it would use.