The following is the full text of the statement issued by Prof Anthony Clare and Prof Patricia Casey:
We write as two psychiatrists who have become increasingly concerned at the central position that is being given to psychiatry in the current debate on abortion. Abortion is not a psychiatric matter. The overwhelming majority of abortions on Irish women are carried out for social and economic reasons.
Those who powerfully demand that women should have the right to choose to abort their unborn babies should not enrol psychiatry or psychiatric justifications for their cause.
What is a social and/or economic justification is increasingly being presented as some kind of psychiatric necessity.
The fact is, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists has made plain, "there are no absolute psychiatric indications for termination of pregnancy" - that is to say, there are no psychiatric conditions for which abortion is the only answer.
One of us (AC) was invited to appear before the All Party Oireachtas Committee of the Constitution considering abortion and declared "the only reason that I am here, . . . that you will find psychiatrists involved in this (the issue of abortion), is . . . we have been drawn in to try to get people off the hook over this issue of danger to the health and life of a woman who is pregnant and wishes to terminate the pregnancy; so who better than to get a psychiatrist to tell you that if this is refused this woman will kill herself".
AC also told the committee of his experience in Bermuda in the 1970s where a psychiatrist's signature was required to the effect that suicide would occur were a request for abortion to be denied. Psychiatrists became hopelessly compromised.
Women were increasingly pressurised to make suicidal statements to justify their request to end a pregnancy that was unwanted, economically threatening or socially unacceptable.
Both of us agree, on the basis of our extensive knowledge of such research as is available, that no psychiatrist can predict suicide with any degree of certainty, and no evidence can be found unequivocally linking suicide to the refusal of abortion.
The many other reasons put forward justifying abortion such as conception following rape, incest, serious economic or social problems are not psychiatric issues.
It is important that psychiatrists, politicians, lawyers and the general public recognise that the justifications offered for abortion do not come from psychiatric necessity.
Both of us also agree that there is no evidence of an increased suicide rate in women who have been raped but refused abortion and gone on to complete their pregnancies.
Those who argue that abortion should be offered to victims of rape or incest are not justified in using psychiatry or psychiatric evidence to justify their arguments.
It is being argued by some, including some doctors, that the amendment if passed will limit the pregnant woman's access to the total range of mental health services and that ultimately their psychological well-being will be compromised.
It is also being suggested that women's mental health is being relegated to second place, below their physical health. We believe that there is no basis for these views.
Pregnancy is not a contra-indication for any psychiatric treatment.
Both of us believe and insist that Irish psychiatrists will continue to offer pregnant women the full range of psychological and pharmacological treatments in accordance with clinical judgment and will continue to be available, as we are now, to counsel and advise women with emotional problems whether they are non-pregnant, pregnant, recently delivered or have had an abortion.
Both of us have argued, and will continue to argue, for better and more resources for the Irish mental health services and we are both dissatisfied with the current level of service provision.
We believe that the proposed amendment does provide support and protection for women's mental health and the health and protection of their unborn babies. We support the amendment.