The legal adviser to the Pro-Life Campaign, Prof William Binchy, has said that women must receive all necessary medical treatment during pregnancy, even if it results in the death of the foetus.
Prof Binchy said that he supported the type of intervention in pregnancies carried out in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and other hospitals in the State, where pregnancies are terminated in order to save the life of the mother.
Speaking on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1 yesterday morning, Prof Binchy said that although the intervention resulted in the death of a foetus, "it is not directed towards taking the life of the child".
"What the people in hospitals in Ireland seek to do is give the best medical treatment to the mother and child. The net effect is that Ireland is the safest place in the world to be pregnant," he said.
Prof Binchy added: "If the whole context, activity and purpose of the particular intervention is directed towards protecting the mother's life and, incidentally, doing the best one can for the baby in those circumstances, there is, of course, no ethical problem and there should be no legal problem . . .
Prof Binchy said that the Supreme Court decision handed down in 1992, which allowed abortion in certain circumstances if the life of the mother was threatened, allowed for a law which involved the intentional termination of the foetus.
"We are absolutely happy with what is taking place in Irish hospitals - all we want is that legal support be given to that."
Prof Binchy said that the ProLife Campaign was not looking to take away from the level of care provided to women.
"All we are looking for is protection of that medical care under law and at the same time that we don't introduce into this country an abortion regime which in every other country, once an abortion regime has been introduced, turn into fairly wide-ranging abortion law," he said.
The Master of the Rotunda Hospital, Dr Peter McKenna, said one or two cases arose each year in hospitals whereby a pregnancy had to be terminated to save the mother's life. He was also speaking on Morning Ireland.
High blood pressure caused by the pregnancy was often the reason for such conditions, Dr McKenna said.
Dr McKenna added: "Whether you call that treating the condition or whether you call that terminating the pregnancy is really a matter of opinion but that is really what has to be done."
But he later said: "If you say that it is treatment, then you still can go on saying and upholding that termination of pregnancy is never, ever justified and what I have found in the course of many years of practice is that there is always something new - something you have never thought about - is going to come along and unless that you have some latitude, unless you have some trust, you are not going to be able to offer the appropriate treatment".
Dr McKenna said there were other doctors who would also feel that, morally, a termination of a pregnancy in these cases was justified. Women who travelled outside of the State for an abortion were a separate issue from the cases in question, Dr McKenna said.
"What I am talking about are people who are critically ill and who probably couldn't be moved from one hospital to another, let alone from one state to another. There is no doubt that if you banned the extreme cases that I am talking about that some people would have died by now."