The Medical Council will again discuss the issue of abortion at its meeting today. Two motions passed by it last May altered the Medical Council policy to allow for abortion where there was the threat of suicide, a "real and substantial risk" to the life of the mother or a foetal abnormality incompatible with life outside the womb.
Abortion where there is a threat of suicide has been legal since the Supreme Court judgment in the X case in 1992, but the Medical Council's ethical guidelines meant an abortion could not be performed on such a ground. In the C case, the Eastern Health Board obtained permission to take abroad for an abortion a young rape victim in its care who threatened suicide.
The second motion, referring to the threat to the life of the mother and severe foetal abnormality, would if incorporated into the Medical Council guidelines represent a substantial liberalisation for the profession.
Two new motions have been proposed. One seeks to take back from the ethics committee its delegated authority to discuss abortion to allow the council to revise the ethical guidelines. The other proposes that the position stated in the original motions be incorporated into the guidelines.
Two counter-motions have also been tabled. One seeks "widespread and open consultation on the issue with both the public and the profession". The other proposes that the submission of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to the All-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution be the basis for the ethical guidelines. This referred to rare complications in pregnancy that could lead to the deaths of both mother and baby if pregnancy was not terminated. It allows for abortion on limited medical grounds and represents a shift in the antiabortion position, whose proponents had argued that such circumstances did not arise.