New policy document: Legislation to clear the way for limited abortion in the Republic, within the limits set down by the Supreme Court judgments, should be introduced, the Labour Party agreed.
A policy document, drafted after two years of consultation, was accepted without debate after intensive discussions between the party's leadership and members of Labour's women's group on the margins of the party's conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.
Proposing the document, which was finally accepted with no obvious sign of dissent, Mr James Wrynne said: "We believe that it is inappropriate to deal with these tragic human dilemmas in the Constitution. Our stand has been vindicated."
The decision to operate within "the legal possibilities" offered by the Constitution as it stands was taken by the committee led by Mr Wrynne for "both practicable and political reasons".
However, Mr Wrynne said the "courageous" proposal was not "the final answer and full stop" to further progress in the attempt to deal with Ireland's difficulties with abortion.
"A huge amount of work was done over the weekend to make sure that everybody could come on board with this. It is an incredibly important issue for the party. In the end, people were able to support it because everything was explained in the greatest of detail," said one senior party figure.
In 2000, 6,350 Irish women had abortions in the United Kingdom, though the real number is higher because many of those who travel do not give their Irish address.
In addition, the number of Irish women who have abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy is higher than among their British counterparts. Most of these women are single and under 24.
Under the Labour plan, abortion would be available if a pregnancy threatens the health of a mother, including the risk of suicide, or if a foetus had no chance of being born alive.
This would require changes to the Offences Against the Person Act to exempt surgeons from prosecution if they carried out terminations on these grounds.
Such changes would be possible within the existing Constitution because it protects the unborn "only as far as practicable", rather than banning it outright. However, rape or incest victims would not be able, except in some limited circumstances, to terminate pregnancies under the Labour proposal.
"Legal advice indicates, however, that it would not be possible to bring forward legislation dealing with all these issues in their own right under the current constitutional position," said the Wrynne report.
If the changes proposed were successfully challenged subsequently in the courts, Labour said it would then "consider such constitutional options as would then arise".
The document goes on: "Labour is profoundly aware that party members and supporters hold a wide range of views on this matter, and that is considered as a matter of deep personal conscience.
"It recognises that for many members the assertion that the primary decision on this matter should be taken by the woman who is pregnant is a core political belief.
"Equally (it) recognises that for many members, and indeed as a matter of existing constitutional law, this is a matter not of one set of rights but of two sets of rights which are in conflict."
A barrister involved in drafting the policy, Mr Richard Humphries, said it was "a sensible, practical proposal" that ended the days of "futile, pointless internal squabbling" within Labour. In November 2001, delegates, against the leadership's wishes, narrowly supported a motion defending a woman's right to choose without any further referendums on the issue.