We need to amend the eighth amendment

The only change required under the eighth amendment is to remove the suicidal clause and ‘correct’ the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act which failed miserably to reflect the overriding view at the Oireachtas Hearings that abortion is never a treatment for suicidal ideation.

The ‘interpretation’ of the wording in the 1983 amendment — by four of the five judges in the 1992 Supreme Court X case, which ‘accommodated’ suicidal ideation as a medical reason for an abortion — was blatantly outside the spirit of what 67% of the electorate voted for in 1983.

Of course, the pro-abortion lobby will refer to the two subsequent referendums, when the removal of the suicidal option was rejected, albeit by the slimmest margin in the more recent referendum, of March, 2002.