The Government maintains it has struck a balance between the demands of conservatives and liberals in its abortion proposals.
It asserts that the Pro-Life Campaign is getting what it has campaigned for eight years - a referendum to remove the threat of suicide as a ground for abortion. Section 1 (2) of the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill states clearly that a risk of loss of the woman's life justifying the termination of a pregnancy must be "other than by self-destruction".
However, the Government refused to accept the Pro-Life Campaign's definition of the "unborn". The Bill does not define the "unborn" at all, but, Government sources point out, defines the crime of abortion. This is defined in the same section as "the deliberate destruction by any means of unborn human life after implantation in the womb of a woman".
The position of the Pro-Life Campaign has always been that human life exists from conception, the fertilisation of the egg by the sperm. Implantation occurs some days later.
Defining human life from fertilisation is at the root of the opposition of anti-abortion campaigners to the intra-uterine device (IUD), a method of contraception thought to prevent implantation, and the morning-after pill, which has a similar effect.
These are available in Ireland, but their legal status has been uncertain.
Last year the Irish Medicines Board ruled that one morning-after pill could not be sold, because it was an abortifacient, a position later changed.
The Taoiseach said this week that this Bill guarantees the legality of the IUD and the morning-after pill, because abortion is defined as arising after implantation.
The Government maintains that this also ensures there would be no legal problems in terminations when there is an ectopic pregnancy, where the foetus grows outside the womb, in the Fallopian tubes.
The Bill makes no specific mention of the IUD or morning-after pill.
According to Government sources, this is for technical reasons, as mentioning specific devices would involve problems of definition that could make this section of the Bill out of date as new products come on the market. The Government believes the term "implantation" in the Bill ensures their legality cannot now be challenged.
The Government points out that the Bill also gives the Pro-Life Campaign a requirement that a doctor who performs a termination because of a "real and substantial risk of loss of the woman's life" must also have "regard to the need to preserve unborn human life where practicable", which is stated in Section 1 (3). There must be a written and signed record of the doctor's opinion in this regard.
The Government states this requirement was absent from the 1992 amendment proposed by Mr Albert Reynolds, which was opposed by the Pro-Life Campaign. The Government expects its presence in this Bill to make the measure acceptable.
But the central place of the doctor-patient relationship, spelt out in Section 1 (3), is designed to make the proposal acceptable to many on the liberal side of the argument.
The doctor is required to have a "reasonable opinion" that there is such a risk of loss of life of the woman, formed "in good faith", backed up by notes and signed. There is no requirement to have a second medical opinion.
The relationship between a woman and her doctor is therefore sacrosanct, and there is room for discretion on the part of the doctor.
The Government insists that, for the first time, the medical profession is given clear legal authority for what it does, and maintains it is offering the Pro-Life Campaign certainty by the referendum and Bill.
Government sources point out that all that prevents a private hospital offering terminations to women threatening suicide are the ethical guidelines of the Medical Council.
As recent months showed, the ground has been shifting in the Medical Council.
If the Bill and amendment are passed, the door will be closed on this possibility, according to the Government.
Under the proposed legislation, terminations can only be carried out in designated places with written records kept of the medical indications.
On the other hand, Government sources also point out that the Bill can be amended.
For those who opposed a further Constitutional amendment, the sources state that this measure is fundamentally legislation, and does not write legislation into the Constitution.
The Government maintains it is open to the Oireachtas to take a different view and pass an amending Act and put it to the people in the future.
The Government's view is that it would be easier to pass a referendum on amended legislation than to tinker with wording in the Constitution itself.
In Section 3 of the Bill, the Pro-Life Campaign also has a clause permitting individual doctors to refuse to carry out procedures on grounds of conscience.
However, Government sources say the Bill sends a clear message that this is not a draconian piece of anti-abortion legislation, in that it would reduce the penalty for performing an illegal abortion from life imprisonment to a maximum of 12 years.
The penalty for illegal abortions in Northern Ireland and Britain is still life imprisonment.