Abortion referendum: campaigns clash

Senior politicians have held concurrent press conferences to bolster their campaigns on the abortion referendum.

A show of strength by the women frontbenchers of Fianna Fail has been matched by the Fine Gael, Labour and Green Party leaders in Dublin.

Mary O’Rourke, Sile De Valera and Mary Hanafin repeated their assertion that the proposal will provide legal certainty for doctors, protect the morning after pill and ensures the people must again be consulted on future changes to abortion law.

At the same time, and appearing together on one platform, Michael Noonan, Ruairi Quinn and Trevor Sargent all agreed that the amendment would roll back the protection for women since the X-case judgement, threaten the legality of the morning-after pill and fail women in a crisis pregnancy.

Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan said the country would not be enduring confusion and frustration if the Government had done things properly.

The three leaders said the real issue is whether to repeal of confirm the X-case, and not, the Taoiseach’s assertion that it’s about abortion on demand.