THE Pro Life Campaign is calling for a referendum to "allow the electorate to constitutionally prohibit abortion".
In a recent submission to the Oireachtas All Party Committee on the Constitution, the campaign firmly rejected the proposal of the Constitutional Review Group to legislate to allow abortion where there was a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother.
A constitutional ban on abortion would not mean an expectant mother would be denied appropriate medical treatment because of the possible but undesired and unintended consequences for her baby, the submission insisted.
It rejected as "unsafe" the review group's conclusion that such a ban would deprive a doctor of "any legal protection for intervention or treatment to save the life of the mother if it occasioned or resulted in termination of her pregnancy".
"Treatments directed at protecting the life of the mother, and not involving any direct attack on her unborn child, are and always have been ethically and legally proper even though the loss of her child may follow as an unsought and unwelcome side effect.
"Irish medical practice has it that . . . `it is unethical always to withhold treatment beneficial to a pregnant woman, by reason of her pregnancy'".
The submission said there was a "crucial distinction" between cases where the death of the unborn might result as an indirect effect of appropriate medical treatment and cases involving intentional killing of the unborn child. Calling for legal protection for all life from conception to natural death, it rejected as "hot - unconstitutional and undesirable" the review group's proposal to introduce a statutory definition of when the "unborn" acquired the protection of the law.
Meanwhile, at a weekend training conference for about 50 antiabortion activists, the campaign's legal adviser, Prof William Binchy, said the public needed to be given the clear choice to vote for or against legalised abortion.
The choice should not be for "a little abortion or a lot of abortion but the choice `do you favour legalised abortion'?" he told activists at the Emmaus Centre in Swords, Co Dublin.
Prof Binchy said it was "highly important" to increase awareness of the entitlements of the unborn who were invisible, and to present their case through the media and to politicians.
The political and legal situation was fluid and now was the perfect time to "have your voice heard in a respectful manner respecting other people's rights to hold contrary opinions. If you do that you will have a very significant influence on the development of public awareness on this issue," he said.