There were conflicting views on how the young girl's pregnancy should be dealt with. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said the State will be acting as an "executioner" if it helps the 13-year-old traveller girl to obtain an abortion.
Ms Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Criminal Law at TCD, said it was "disgraceful" that a court battle was again looming over a young woman's body. Someone in such circumstances should be able to make a decision with her guardians away from the glare of publicity.
Ms Noreen Byrne, chairwoman of the National Women's Council of Ireland, said: "Exceptional cases and court cases would continue until people and politicians faced up to the fact that there are no simple solutions to crisis pregnancies."
Ms Olive Braiden of the Rape Crisis Centre said the Government should work on legislation and show "leadership and courage".
Fine Gael's health spokesman, Deputy Alan Shatter, said the Minister for Health should state whether he intends to issue any policy guidelines to Health Boards "prescribing the approach" to be taken and the procedures applicable where the parents of a teenage pregnant rape victim in their care wish their daughter to procure an abortion.
A major issue of social policy concerning the welfare of child rape victims should not be determined behind closed doors by a Health Board, without a public explanation of the approach taken or proposed to be taken by those vested with a legal responsibility to provide child care.
The parents are still the constitutional guardians of the girl and, whether or not guidelines exist, Mr Shatter said he believed it was within the Health Board's capacity to reach an agreement with them without going to court.
Urging the Health Board to go ahead and seek legal clarification of its position, the Labour party spokesman on health and children, Mr Derek McDowell, TD said no course of action should be undertaken in a situation of continuing uncertainty as to their powers and responsibilities.
Democratic Left's spokeswoman on health, Ms Liz McManus, TD said "every government in power since 1992 has ducked the substantive issue arising form the X Case". The interests of the young rape victim should be the predominant factor and the decision should be made by the girl, her family, Health Board staff in whose care she resides, and her medical advisers. "The decision should be made on medical grounds and not on judicial or political grounds".
The time had come to stop relying on Britain to provide a safety valve for dealing with crisis pregnancies, Ms McManus said. In spite of having no abortion available in this country, the rate of terminations among Irish women - around 10 percent was as high as many European countries where abortion was freely available, she added. While calls were made for legislation to clarify the law on abortion, the former Attorney General, Mr Harry Whelehan, told RTE the High Court "might well" make an order in favour of the unborn child if the case was brought to it by the Eastern Health Board, which has taken the girl into care.
Neither the State nor any of its bodies had the right to "inflict the death penalty on an innocent child" by permitting someone in its care to obtain an abortion, SPUC said. Its president, Dr Mary Lucey, said the organisation had not decided whether it would take any legal action on the current case. A meeting, due shortly, of SPUC's 15-member council is to consider the matter.
If the child and her parents want an abortion and "the health board has the responsibility for the difficulties that arise, then it could not assume the responsibility of making decisions between what would be the conflicting rights of the mother on the one hand to travel for the purpose of having an abortion, and the right of the unborn child to life. And it's precisely for that reason that we have courts in this constitutional democracy to decide on issues where conflicting rights arise".
Both Life Ireland and the Pro-Life Campaign said abortion was not the answer to the family's dilemma.