The Government’s new abortion guidelines may be amended to take account of lessons learned from the ‘Ms Y’ case, Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has indicated.
Mr Varadkar said the guidelines were not “set in stone” and could be amended “down the road if we learn things from the Y case”.
That case did not “feed into” the development of the guidelines, as it was still being investigated, he said.
Asked why the guidelines were being published now, when the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act became law last January, the Minister said abortion was not a simple or black-and-white area.
The guidelines had to be run by the Department of Health and the Attorney General, where some changes were made.
He stressed the guidelines were not clinical guidelines, as this was a matter for the professional bodies. “They provide practical advice for professionals to follow if they encounter a woman whose life is at risk because of pregnancy.”
Professionals should refer a woman whose life is under threat because of pregnancy to a GP or emergency department as appropriate, he said.
“One thing I know as a doctor is that medicine is never black and white and I know as a legislator that legislation can never be black and white. It is never going to be possible to create guidelines that provide absolute clarity.”
