The proposed abortion referendum, and the legislation that goes with it, will threaten the lives of women who are suicidal as a result of pregnancy, according to a number of community and women's organisations.
Ms Cathleen O'Neill, of the Northside Poverty Action Group and the Alliance for a No Vote, told a press conference yesterday the proposed legislation would make it impossible for refugees and minors who had no right or means to leave the country to go abroad for an abortion.
It would overturn the X judgment, on which the 13-year-old rape victim in the C case relied when asking the Eastern Health Board to take her abroad for an abortion.
"The Taoiseach and Mr Martin have said that this will still be provided for. But there are no provisions for it in the legislation," she said.
She agreed that at the moment suicidal women could not have an abortion in Ireland because of the Medical Council's ethical guidelines, but said this right did exist in the Constitution following the X case.
"We want to win this campaign so that we can win a broader campaign later on abortion rights," she told The Irish Times. Her personal view was that an abortion was a matter between a woman and her doctor.
She said the proposed legislation would not protect the morning-after pill and the IUD from legal challenge. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in England was already mounting such a challenge there, she said.
Ms Kathleen Maher, of the Ballymun Women's Group, said this was a particular issue for working-class women who did not have the money to travel. Already, women's community groups were regularly fundraising for women who needed to travel for an abortion. The proposed legislation was telling women who went abroad they were criminals.
Ms Sinead Ní Chúlacháin told The Irish Times the legislation would mean that a woman who obtained the abortion-inducing pill off the Internet would be guilty of a crime and could face 12 years in prison.
Senator Helen Keogh, chairwoman of the Well Woman Centre, said that, if passed, the legislation would use the Constitution to control women's health.
"It will refuse to believe a pregnant woman who is suicidal, until she does what she says she is going to do, and leave women who are advised by their doctors that their baby is not viable with no choice other than to face the pain of completing their pregnancy."
She said the risk of suicide in pregnancy, though rare, was real. "Studies point to the risk of suicide being greater where a woman is denied an abortion, or where she is in her teens, or of low socio-economic status," she said.
It was not true that if this was defeated there would be a liberal abortion regime in Ireland. It was possible to legislate for circumstances such as threatened suicide.
Ms Denise Charlton, of Women's Aid, said rape and incest often existed in abusive relationships, and women in such relationships had no access to abortion.
Ms Karen Kiernan, of Cherish, said her organisation gave non-directive counselling to women in crisis pregnancies and knew how difficult it was for some women to face single parenthood.