The Irish Independent reports today that both the Law Society, which represents the Ireland’s 12,000 solicitors, and the Bar Council, which acts for some 2,300 barristers, declined to appear before current hearings of the Dublin government’s joint committee on health and children.

Personal importance

Law Society director general Ken Murphy told the newspaper that his organisation had ‘never taken a public position in any way touching on the deeply divisive issue of abortion’, before stating that the society was not about to change that position.
For his part, Bar Council director Jerry Carroll said the ‘personal import’ of the issue to individual barristers made it impossible for his group to submit evidence to the hearing.
The highly emotive issue for the deeply Catholic Republic of Ireland was thrust back into the spotlight following the death last autumn of Savita Halappanavar, who died at Galway university hospital during a miscarriage despite both she and her husband reportedly repeatedly asking for a termination of the 19-week pregnancy.

Limited circumstances

Just before the end of last year, Ireland’s Fine Gael-Labour coalition government, led by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who represents a highly Catholic rural constituency, said it would legislate to allow abortions in limited circumstances.
According to a recent report in The Guardian newspaper in the UK, it is understood that terminations could be allowed when the mother’s life is at risk, either owing to the foetus itself or because she might commit suicide. The newspaper said it was still unclear whether the proposed legislation would allow abortions in cases of rape or sexual abuse.