Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan has claimed that more pregnancies involving Down syndrome and disability diagnoses will be terminated if abortion is allowed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Most of Fianna Fáil’s frontbench are opposed to allowing unrestricted access to abortion for pregnancies up to 12 weeks or have concerns about liberalising the laws to that extent.

Fianna Fáil’s grassroots members have strongly backed a motion opposing “any attempt to diminish the constitutional rights of the unborn” despite party leader Micheál Martin calling for a free vote in any referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment.