Church condemns Irish abortion reform as 'licence to kill babies'

Ireland on Tuesday moved to legalise abortions when the mother's life is at risk, including when she is suicidal following a public outcry over the death of Savita Halappanavar, a pregnant woman in October who died after her repeated requests for an abortion were refused while she was suffering a miscarriage.

The Catholic hierarchy has demanded that the country's MPs are given a free vote after the Irish government announced that votes would be whipped next year in a bid to get the controversial legislation through parliament.

"On a decision of such fundamental moral importance, every public representative is entitled to complete respect for the freedom of conscience," said a statement from the Catholic primate Cardinal Sean Brady and the archbishops of Dublin, Cashel and Tuam.
"The unavoidable choice that now faces all our public representatives is: will I choose to defend and vindicate the equal right to life of a mother and the child in her womb in all circumstances, or will I choose to licence the direct and intentional killing of the innocent baby in the womb?".

The Irish government will next year repeal legislation that makes abortion a criminal act and to introduce regulations setting out when doctors can perform an abortion when a woman's life is regarded as being at risk, including by suicide.

The new legislation will drafted to comply with a landmark ruling in the European Court of Human Rights two years ago and a 1992 Irish Supreme Court decision in the "X case".

The Irish ruling 20 years ago overturned an injunction preventing a 14-year girl, who had been raped and was suicidal because she could not get a legal abortion, from travelling to Britain to have her pregnancy terminated.