The needs of women in crisis pregnancy will be overlooked if there is another abortion referendum, Ms Liz McManus TD has told a Labour Party women's conference.
"If we go down the road of another referendum, it will be as arid and divisive as the previous referendums," she said.
"It is crucial that the central issue arising from the publication of the Report by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Abortion is not about a referendum at all but rather about facing the realities of abortion and the needs of women in a crisis pregnancy," she said.
"A referendum will not make the slightest bit of difference to that reality, except that it might put certain women's lives at risk if it passes," she said. There had been no debate about tackling the issue of crisis pregnancy; discussion had instead focused on "the tired issue" of abortion, she said.
Ms McManus said all politicians, regardless of opinions on abortion, could work together to ensure a that health strategy could reduce crisis pregnancies.
"Education, access to contraception and as information on the supports and options available to those facing a crisis pregnancy should be the priority in tackling our high abortion rate," she said.
At the conference Ms Jan O'Sullivan TD, Labour's spokeswoman on equality and law reform, said the party was not encouraging enough women to enter politics. Unless the party increased women's participation fewer women would vote for it, she said.
Female participation in the party hovered at 33 per cent, Ms O'Sullivan said. "I believe that many of the male members of the party have failed to make sufficient effort to involve women. This applies to branch, constituency and national levels".
Ms O'Sullivan said Labour was in a leading position, compared to other parties, to garner women's support because of "our commitment at a political level to equality, women's health and family-friendly workplaces".
However, the lack of childcare currently made it extremely difficult for women to engage in national politics, she said.
Cllr Joan Burton told the conference women were still being treated as second-class citizens when it came to their social welfare entitlements. "It is time we stopped treating women as dependents of their husbands and awarded them full social welfare payments in their own right," she said.