READ MORE- Irish abortion law may change after EU ruling
A Pro-life group in Dublin has called for a referendum on abortion in the wake of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last week.
Professor William Binchy, the campaign’s legal director said that legislation based on the 1992 Supreme Court ruling, which says that terminating a pregnancy is lawful were the life of a mother is at risk would be “folly” because the original decision was based on “faulty medical understanding”.
“We have a choice between legislation and a referendum and our strong proposal is that we should have a referendum after due consideration,” he said.
“The Irish people must now consider this whole question of protection for unborn life and we can do one of two things. We can go on the lines of the Supreme Court and implement legislation based on a decision taken on faulty medical understanding or we can have a referendum which seeks to protect the unborn and back that up with legislation,” he added.
Prof Binchy said that no woman had died in an Irish hospital due to circumstances pertaining to the protection of the unborn child.
“We do not have legislation in this country and the argument that succeeded in the court was that in the absence of that legislation people would be in a situation where they would not know where they stood,” he said.
Youth Defence, an anti-abortion group in Ireland described the ruling as “intrusive, unwelcome and an attempt to violate Ireland’s pro-life laws”.
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