Legislation to regulate abortion in circumstances defined by the X case was the best of the seven options in the Government's Green Paper and would be stricter than what currently applies in Northern Ireland, according to the Presbyterian Church.
The church's Moderator, Dr Trevor Morrow, also told the Oireachtas hearings on abortion that significant numbers of Presbyterians "are convinced by the arguments for the absolute rights of the unborn".
He said it was the responsibility of legislators to preserve the Constitution but also to "recognise the difficult cases".
The Rev Norman Cameron, convenor of the church's social issues and resources committee, told Senator John Dardis that abortion was available in the North, though it seemed to have been kept to a minimal level.
Mr Cameron said: "We also have the feeling that there are abortions taking place which are illegal, such as a Downs' Syndrome case . . . but there is a culture of it being suppressed and kept secret."
He said that unless the Government encouraged the message of no sex outside marriage, unwanted pregnancies and abortions would continue.
"A Christian viewpoint is of a faithfulness within marriage and sex preferably kept for the marriage bond. Unless that is a line that government sells, we will continue to have unwanted pregnancies, we will continue to have 5,000 seeking abortions, going to England or wherever."
Dr Morrow did not think "it is possible for any government to legislate about people having sex before marriage, during marriage or after marriage."
Church members believed in the principle that abortion should be permissible to save the life of the mother and where there was a clear and substantial risk of suicide. However, such cases were very rare. A British parliamentary question in 1992 showed that 151 abortions in England and Wales out of 3.6 million were carried out to save the life of the mother.
In response to a question from Senator Denis O'Donovan, Mr Cameron said the church "felt that the Constitution was a bit too blunt an instrument and should at least be backed up by laws that were a bit more detailed to allow for the exceptions that there will be."
