Local bishop calls for referendum to overturn X case judgment

The Bishop of Elphin Christopher Jones has called on the Government to consider a new referendum on the abortion issue aimed at overturning the X case judgment. Speaking at the The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children hearings on the abortion issue on Thursday, Bishop Jones, on behalf of the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference, also argued that it was not necessary to legislate for the X case to ensure women in Ireland receive life-saving treatment during pregnancy. He told the hearings that the Catholic Church wanted to see "mothers and their unborn children receive all the medical care and life-saving treatment they need during pregnancy" However, he insisted that there was nothing in current Irish law, in current medical guidelines or in the Catholic ethics that prevented such treatment from being given. He claimed that: "Any suggestion that Ireland is an unsafe place for pregnant mothers because we do not have abortion is a complete distortion of the truth." Bishop Jones insisted: "The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of the child in the womb should be preferred to that of the mother or the life of the mother to that of the child." And he said there appeared to be considerable confusion about the terminology being used in the discussion about medical intervention to save the life of a mother. "The Catholic Church recognises a vital moral distinction between medical intervention to save the life of the mother and abortion," he said. Abortion, "understood as the direct and intentional killing of an unborn child in the womb", was different from medical treatment to save the life of the mother where there is no other option or where the intervention does not directly and intentionally seek to end the life of the unborn baby, he said. This was position which applied in Irish hospitals today, he argued. "However, legislating for the X case removes the obligation to make every effort at all times to preserve the life of both mother and unborn baby. It allows for abortion, for the direct and intentional killing of the baby in the womb. And he claimed that it was not necessary to legislate for the X case to ensure women in Ireland receive all the life-saving treatment they needed during pregnancy. Instead, he said the Government could consider the "option of appropriate guidelines which continue to exclude the direct and intentional killing of the unborn, or a referendum to overcome the X case judgment". Criticising the Supreme Court judgment in the X case, Bishop Jones said it was not the basis on which to move forward on the issue. "The X case judgment potentially permits abortion up to birth. In addition, assurances that legislation will limit abortion to very specific circumstances are unreliable. Any such limitation will inevitably become subject to challenge in the courts. "No matter what way legislation is approached, the moral and legislative difficulties posed by the X case judgment can only be addressed definitively by a return to the people in a referendum," he concluded.