Legislation must be introduced urgently

Twenty years on from the X case, the Government must act to bring certainty to abortion law, writes Jennifer Schweppe

THE submission of the report of the expert group on abortion to the minister for health coincided with the reporting of the Savita Halappanavar case.

While theoretical arguments can be made in the abstract about the distinction between life and health, and whether termination of pregnancy is ever truly medically necessary, the Halappanavar case throws these questions into stark relief. There have been several cases regarding the right of a woman to terminate her preg-nancy when her life is at risk. What is different about this case is that it asks what “life” means for the purposes of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution.