Ms Dana Rosemary Scallon, the Connacht/Ulster MEP, has confirmed that she will not be supporting the Government's abortion referendum proposal on the grounds that it does not protect the right to life from conception.
In a lengthy statement, the MEP said that her decision had been taken "regretfully" following widespread consultation with supporters. "Throughout the past years, I have joined in the many calls for a new referendum which would effectively overturn the Supreme Court judgment in the X case and restore adequate protection for the unborn", she stated.
"However, it is my belief that the current referendum not only does not afford protection for the unborn between the times of conception and implantation, it in fact 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 onwards, and instead provides criminal sanctions only for those abortions committed after the unborn child has implanted in the womb."
The MEP's decision will cause some disquiet in the Pro-Life Campaign, which had hoped that she would support the referendum.
According to Ms Scallon, although the Government's wor-ding "removes the mother's threatened suicide as a justification for abortion", it creates "a situation where the justification for abortion would come down to the 'reasonable opinion' of one medical practitioner". She adds: "This could be open to wide interpretation, particularly if medical guidelines and ethics were to change in Ireland, as we are advised they may."
The Government's proposal "could not be judged in isolation" to the EU's decision to allow public funding for research on stem cells, she said. However, she told the Sunday Tribune that she would not be actively campaigning against the referendum: "I don't feel that it is my place to tell people how they should vote. As a matter of conscience, and of my own integrity, my position must remain the same as it has always been - that I uphold the dignity of every human being from conception to natural death."
