THE issue of abortion in its various guises has convulsed the State more than once in the past 15 years. The recent story that an abortion had been carried out at a Dublin clinic and a doctor suspended as a consequence is only the most recent of many such convulsions.

The issue itself is characterised by what one commentator has called an "intimidating complexity" - a complexity reflected in the language used by the main protagonists in the debate. Each side is determinedly `Pro' a very important value (`Life' and `Choice') and most reluctant to be characterised as `Anti' anything, though the tone of the debate leaves no room for doubt that each side is unequivocally `Anti' the other.

While the situation may be intimidatingly complex, to do nothing is not an option. As recently as May, 1996, the Constitutional Review Group has highlighted a range of issues which make the status quo simp intolerable. These issues include: the definition of the term `unborn'; the impossibility of resolving the equal rights to life of mother and child when the two come into conflict; the risk of suicide as a substantive ground for abortion and the absence of any statutory time restriction on when an abortion may be carried out.

These issues involve fundamental questions of morality, medicine and both statutory and constitutional law. An attempt to answer them will bring up profound philosophical and theological questions about the nature of human life and the human being. If it is to have a hope of being adequate, it will necessarily involve an honest examination of the history of all of those disciplines and their treatment of women's experience so that the possibility of a one sided, sexist response is minimised. Finally, it must be said that perhaps the most intimidating facet of this complex whole is that we are called upon not only to give the appropriate answer to the questions raised in each of these individual disciplines but at the same time to take satisfactory account of the intimate inter relation between all of them if any proposed solution is to be effective.

This article doesn't pretend to offer such a solution but court. What it aims to do is make a plea in relation to the means of moving towards one. Perhaps the first step is to learn the lessons of recent history. When one reads contemporary accounts of the run up to the 1983 referendum, one cannot but wonder whether subsequent events were helped or hindered by the pressure to put forward a `Pro Life Amendment' in the context of a general election campaign. While not condemning any of the individual political figures involved, one cannot but ask whether the competitive, adversarial pressures of a general election campaign were any help in doing justice to the complexity referred to above.

My own plea is simply this: for all the leaders of the main political parties to come together, before the preelection campaign gathers any further momentum, and make a twofold commitment:

1) Not to make abortion an election issue in any adversarial sense nor make any commitments which might be so interpreted;

2) To make a joint commitment to an all party approach to the resolution of the outstanding issues in relation to this question in the immediate post election (and government formation) period.

I believe the potential advantages of such an approach are many:

It gives better hope of a satisfactory long term resolution of the outstanding issues.

Such a unified approach would bolster the credibility of politicians and the political process as a whole at a time when such effective witness is greatly needed.

It would circumvent the possibility of well organised lobby groups wielding a disproportionate influence on politicians at a time when they are likely to feel most vulnerable.

It would help to overcome the understandable - but still culpable - reluctance of politicians to address the issue following the rejection of the 1992 substantive proposal by both `pro life' and `pro choice' groups.

IT would give a national sense of relief at knowing that, whatever one's personal belief, the process of resolving the current intolerable situation would begin at a definite point in time.

Perhaps most importantly, it would treat a complex issue with the sensitivity and delicacy it deserves, something which would be virtually impossible in the run up to a general election.

What does seem clear is that, for reasons set out by the Constitutional Review Group and others, the present unregulated situation cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.

What is necessary is its resolution in a mature and responsible democratic fashion.