Psychiatrists disagree on suicide risk as polls show two-thirds plan to vote 'No'

FINE Gael leader Michael Noonan last night threw down a challenge to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to debate the abortion referendum issues with him on television.

And in a direct appeal to delegates at the party's Ard Fheis in Citywest, he called on them to campaign for a 'No' vote in the referendum campaign. A 'Yes' victory, he said, would create uncertainty, and the amendment "should be rejected out of hand".

"A 'Yes' majority will roll back that small additional protection which the decision in the X case gave to women," he added.

Meanwhile, another prominent psychiatrist entered the debate yesterday and appeared to differ with Anthony Clare and Patricia Casey, who came out last week against suicide being used as medical grounds for abortion.

Former TD Dr Moosajee Bhamjee, a consultant psychiatrist, told the Sunday Independent that he had seen patients who were suicidal, and he urged people to vote down the referendum.

"It is wrong for psychiatrists to suggest that there is no link to suicide," he said. "If the thousands of Irish women who go to Britain for abortions were unable to do so, we would see many more suicides here and the real picture would emerge."

It has also emerged that, arising from changes made late last year by the Irish Medical Council to its ethical rules on abortion for doctors, even if the referendum is defeated and the X case ruling remains, any doctor could be struck off for performing a termination in the case of a woman who claims to be suicidal.

Dana Rosemary Scallon MEP announced last night she will not support a 'Yes' vote in the abortion referendum. She said the amendment could weaken protections against experimentation on human embryos and their destruction. It would leave an artificially created embryo without statutory or, perhaps possibly, constitutional protection, she said.

"It removes the current protection of the pre-implanted unborn found in the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861, which has been interpreted to protect the unborn child within the woman's body from conception onward and instead, provides criminal sanctions only for those abortions committed after the unborn child has implanted in the womb," she said.

A third concern was that it creates a situation where the justification for abortion would come down to "the reasonable opinion" of one medical practitioner. This could be open to wide interpretation, particularly if medical guidelines and ethics were to change in Ireland," she said.

The latest abortion poll results show 60 per cent of people will vote 'No' to the referendum, 25 per cent will vote 'Yes', while 15 per cent remain undecided. Even if all of the undecided voted 'Yes', that would still not be sufficient for the referendum to be passed.

The poll was conducted over the last seven days by health website irishhealth. com among its 31,000 registered users around the country. At the same time, a Sunday Independent telephone poll shows that people are still not clear on the issues despite poster campaigns, acrimonious Dail chamber exchanges and acres of media coverage. Polled at random, with just over two weeks to go to the March 6 referendum, 64 per cent are still unclear on the issues. The main reason for voting 'No' in the irishhealth.com poll were the referendum proposal ignores the fact that thousands of Irish women travel to Britain each year for terminations; no woman would use abortion as a form of birth control; it is a backward step; and abortion should be available in cases of rape or sexual abuse.

Among the main reasons given for voting 'Yes' were that the option of adoption should be considered more in the case of an unwanted child; abortion should be prohibited; and the view that the X-case ruling was flawed.

The 'No' voters reinforced their message yesterday at a Dublin city-centre march and rally to mark the 10th anniversary of the X case. Cathleen O'Neill of the No Alliance said the Taoiseach's claim that rolling back the X case would not put any woman's life at risk was a "cruel deception".

"A 'No' vote will mean that suicide will remain grounds for abortion here and nothing more."

She said people who are not sure how to vote should ask themselves if they want to see the 7,000 Irish women who annually have abortions in Britain branded as criminals, with the threat of 12 years in jail if they do it here.

Labour's spokesperson on childcare, Eithne FitzGerald, told the rally a 'Yes' vote would establish that abortion was a black-and-white issue with no room for hard cases, even those of the most shocking kind. It would roll back the X-case decision and insert a flawed clause in the Constitution which could endanger women who need life-saving treatment in an emergency. On the other hand, Justice Minister John O'Donoghue accused the 'No' camp of steering the debate away from the core issue and towards the fringe issues of medicine and theology. He claimed that well-meaning people in the Sixties had sought to introduce legislation to provide for limited abortion in the UK, and their failure to address the core issue resulted in abortion being available.

"We must not repeat that mistake in this country," he said, adding that Michael Noonan advocating a 'No' vote had a moral obligation to tell the Irish people the extent to which abortion will be lawfully available if the proposal is defeated.

Professor William Binchy of the Pro Life Campaign said voting 'Yes' would give fulllegal protection to the careof women and their unborn children.

But Laois-Offaly TD Charlie Flanagan said the entire referendum should be scrapped because of the lack of calm debate. "You don't change your constitution, nor indeed do you make laws, in an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion," he said.

Last September, the Medical Council voted for a change in its ethical rules on abortion following a major internal split. The new rules, which came just weeks before the Government's announcement of the referendum details, now state that a termination of pregnancy is permissible where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother but this excludes the risk of suicide.

Fergal Bowers is editor of irishhealth.com

- JOSEPH O'MALLEY