The Pro-Life Campaign has said it will "work enthusiastically" to encourage voters to support the Government's abortion referendum proposal early in next year.
Despite growing doubts evident amongst the Progressive Democrats, the leading anti-abortion group insisted the referendum would take place, probably no later than February.
Sen Des Hanafin, the PLC's president, said: "The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said several times that it is going to take place. If the Taoiseach says it is going to take place, it is going to take place."
The Progressive Democrat leader and Tβnaiste, Ms Harney, had strongly supported the referendum's aims when she spoke in the Dβil, said Dr Berry Kiely, the PLC's medical adviser.
Acknowledging that little public debate had taken place so far on the referendum, Dr Kiely said: "However, we are confident that (it) will receive widespread popular support as people recognise that it presents a unique opportunity to resolve the issue at a constitutional, legal, medical and social level, following one of the most comprehensive consultations ever undertaken on the subject anywhere in the world."
The majority of psychiatric experts agreed that women were more likely to commit suicide if they had an abortion than if they went through with the pregnancy, she said.
"We have a responsibility to be guided by the medical experts. The proposal, therefore, rightly recognises that abortion is not an appropriate response to suicidal feelings."
The PLC statement does not counter arguments that the referendum offers protection to the embryo from the time it is implanted in the womb rather than from conception.
However, Prof William Binchy of the PLC insisted that the campaign had not compromised: "We have argued for years that a prosecution for using the "morning-after pill" would be neither appropriate nor successful." Debates about abortion in Ireland had in the past had become "sidetracked" by fears that changes would diminish the rights of mothers to proper treatment, he said.
"These issues have been taken care of. It is now a values question: do you favour abortion in Ireland, or do you not? That is the question that will really face the Irish people," he said.
The referendum proposal clearly distinguished between the deliberate targeting of a foetus and medical treatment necessary to save the mother's life, he added.
