The Oireachtas committee report on abortion offers a way forward that is likely to meet with broad approval. Many of the proposals contained in the £50 million initiative to ease the social and economic pressures on women to have abortions have already been highly praised.

Having read the report, I would have been pleased to find greater detail on how this initiative will translate into practical action. We know from the Trinity study commissioned by the Department of Health and Children that the main pressures relating to the abortion decision are ones that are capable of being reduced by sensitive social and economic policies: concerns about career, the stigma of lone parenthood, the needs of the child and the financial concerns of lone parenthood.

Fifty million pounds may seem a significant sum but, spread over 10 years as the committee proposed, it is very small when one bears in mind the good that will flow from every individual decision not to have an abortion.

If there is broad agreement on the good sense of many of these practical measures, there is also widespread approval of how the committee has addressed the question of future legal policy in Ireland.

It should be no surprise that the quality of this aspect of the report is high. The committee was chaired by Brian Lenihan, a Senior Counsel who is a scholar of Trinity College and did postgraduate studies at Cambridge. The complex legal issues needed sophisticated analysis rather than resort to rhetoric.

The committee heard very detailed evidence from the obstetricians working in the area day to day and night to night. What emerges is an inspiring reality where doctors do their very best for both mother and child, women receive all necessary medical treatment during pregnancy and medical safety in Irish hospitals is among the best in the world, better than in countries such as Britain and the United States where abortion is readily available.

Of the three options, the Labour Party approach is rejected by the majority of the committee. This would involve legislation in line with the Supreme Court decision in Attorney General v X. Such an approach would conflict with medical ethics, medical practice and the clear advice received by the pyschiatrists who gave evidence to the committee.

It is a matter of interest, to which some serious reflection should be given, that advocates of wide-ranging access to abortion favour this approach. Why would they do so unless they regard it, correctly, as opening the door to the type of abortion regime they favour?

THE second approach, of doing nothing, is understandable but mistaken. It is naive to believe that, because the Supreme Court decision in Attorney General v X has not been followed by abortions in Ireland, the future is secure.

The position now, as a result of the holding in X, is that abortion is lawful, even abortion up to birth, on a ground that in practice translates into wide-ranging abortion. This legal reality has not so far turned into actual reality because the Irish medical profession is opposed to abortion. But this fragile legal position would prove incapable of withstanding a challenge by those with a different ideological approach.

The third approach offers the basis of a satisfactory solution. It involves legislation, backed by a constitutional amendment, ensuring that abortion will be unlawful in the State, while doctors will be able to give mothers all necessary medical treatment during pregnancy. This option is based on sound medical ethics and is consistent with what doctors do every day in hospital.

This approach has the support of the vast majority of the electorate, whose views have been canvassed regularly over the past eight years. Seventy-seven per cent expressed a preference for a referendum in the most recent poll last September. In contrast, the approach favoured in the Labour Party option, of legislating without a referendum, was supported by only 6 per cent of those polled.

As we move forward, implementing the social and economic programme and giving the electorate the opportunity to have their views on this important issue of human rights supported by our law, it is crucially important that we conduct our public discussion on this troubling and sad subject calmly and respectfully. Abortion touches all our emotions because it brings into view so many fundamental issues that trouble people of good will. Should our human community welcome unborn children or treat them as strangers? Has an unborn child the right not to have her or his life terminated? What are the practical obligations of a society that says No to abortion and Yes to unborn life?

As members of a mature society, we can discuss these issues openly and with mutual respect. The Oireachtas committee report has made our task easier and more informed.

William Binchy is Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College Dublin and legal adviser to the Pro-Life Campaign