Sir, – Lucinda Creighton’s recent suggestion that it is possible to introduce legislation on abortion without addressing the suicide issue is entirely correct, and in the course of the decades-long debate on the issue this option has been put forward before.
The Green Paper on Abortion, compiled in 1999 by a working group comprised of officials from four government departments and the attorney general, was perhaps the most comprehensive report ever compiled on the issue of abortion in Ireland. In its conclusions, the report specifically listed the course of action proposed by Ms Creighton as one of the possible legislative responses to the X case.
The report said that the Oireachtas could introduce legislation which protected doctors but which would also “exclude any defence based on psychological or psychiatric grounds (including suicide)”. The report noted this could lead to further court actions in the future, but it also specifically said that such an approach “would seek to meet the criticisms that the State had failed to provide any laws on foot of the constitutional amendment in 1983” and that it “would have the advantage of permitting existing medical practice to continue”.
This is an option which remains open to the Oireachtas, and it is to Ms Creighton’s credit that she has drawn attention to it. – Yours, etc,