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Office rOMance: is the risk really wOrth it?
sense of hozier: does album live up to expectations? pAGe 14
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JobS & CourSeS p19
Dubs star recOVerinG after stab attack
women ‘at risk over abortion shambles’
IRELAND’S new guidelines on when a woman can get an abortion because she is suicidal are unfairly restrictive, pro-choice campaigners have claimed. A number of groups have criticised the explicit reference to ‘suicidal intent’ in the new guidelines that go along with the Protection For Life During Pregnancy Act. Doctors For Choice said this inclusion placed a higher threshold than was needed, ‘setting the bar much higher than the Act itself intends. We believe that it will cause those who are at risk of suicide, but who have not expressed it, being denied a termination’. Under the new guidelines, wom-
by DaViD kearns
en have to verbally express their desire to end their own lives. This means the woman cannot be referred by a psychiatrist unless the woman specifically states that she is suicidal. Commenting on the publication of the guidelines, Pro-Life Campaign deputy chairperson Cora Sherlock said that ‘abortion is not a treatment for suicidal feelings’, adding that these guidelines were ‘never about life-saving treatments’. ‘It was always about Fine Gael capitulating to Labour… opening the door to abortion in Ireland.’
A new poll at the weekend showed a majority of Irish people now favour a new referendum to repeal the current position, which gives equal right to life to the mother and foetus. According to a Sunday Independent/Millward Brown opinion poll, 56 per cent of people have softened their attitudes and want abortion to be less restricted, after recent controversies related to the health and well-being of pregnant women. ‘This is not surprising – the current abortion laws are a shambles. That’s all that can be said about them,’ said Niall Behan, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association.
ki nGDOM Of heaVen«
Keep Dublin tidy – Please recycle this Metro Herald when you are finished with it
SporT: bACK pAGe