‘Abortion will not be affected’

FIANNA FÁIL knows scaremongering when it sees it. After all, the party has done a bit of scaremongering itself over the years. None more so than in the final days of campaigning prior to the referendum on abortion in 2002.

The official position on abortion, as defined by a Supreme Court judgment, was that it could be permitted only in cases where there was a direct threat to the life of the mother, the risk of suicide included.

Bertie Ahern, the then taoiseach, was leading the charge for a yes vote, the effects of which would have been to remove the risk of suicide by the mother as grounds for legal abortion.