History shows the size of Government's task to steer a course on abortion debate

For a year in every decade, the issue of abortion has dominated the political agenda. In the early 1980s, it was the amendment to the Constitution intended to protect the life of the unborn (an amendment that has caused considerable difficulty since then). In 1992, it was one of those in extremis cases that test the law to the limits.

The circumstances of the X case were terrible. It involved a 14 year old girl who became pregnant as a result of statutory rape by an older man. She threatened to commit suicide if she was made carry her pregnancy to term.

The Supreme Court, in the first substantial test, of the amendment decided that an abortion was lawful if there was a substantial risk to the life, as opposed to the health, of the mother. It held that the threat of self-destruction constituted such a risk.

The decision has been a problematic one. In the two decades since the decision there has been no legislative response. It wasn't a case of inaction.

Two referendums were held to try to change the Constitution to incorporate the X case judgement, but without the crucial part of the decision that allowed a threat of suicide to be accepted as satisfying the test of a substantial risk.

Both referendums failed, the second by a paper-thin margin. The reason it was lost was because pro-choice advocates and groups with extreme anti-abortion views both campaigned for a No vote... for very different reasons.

Once it was defeated, whatever weak breezes were in the sails of political parties on this issue dwindled away.

A government gave the go-ahead for guidelines to be issued for the medical profession but no serious effort was made in the intervening years to grasp this nettle. It got caught in the political doldrums.

The Supreme Court judgement was clearly the law but it was becoming increasingly difficult for doctors - and indeed for lawyers - to divine what was permitted and what was not.

A new government came into power in the early months of last year. It was made up of two parties that had very different views on the matter. Labour had included legislation to give statutory backing to the X-case judgement in its manifesto.

The commitment by Fine Gael was more guarded and a considerable bloc of the party's TDs, both old and new, had very strong views on abortion. However, it wasn't just the X-case anymore.

The European Court of Human Rights had held that Ireland's current laws on abortion – based on a reading of the Constitutional provision, the 1861 Offences against the Person Act that made abortion a felony, and the Supreme Court case – had infringed the personal rights of a cancer sufferer.

The judgement has been portrayed in some quarters as being permissive and pro-abortion but that is not the case.

It rejected two cases in which women sought abortions on grounds of poverty and choice. In the third case, C, it held there was no accessible and effective procedure to establish whether a cancer patient qualified for a lawful termination of pregnancy if the pregnancy posed a possible risk to her life.

This was a grey area for which the law was, and is, unclear. When the programme for government was being drafted, both parties agreed that an expert group would look at the matter and recommend a solution.

There was a view that the majority of Fine Gael TDs and Senators - including its leader - favoured new guidelines for the medical profession rather than a new law that would liberalise abortion laws too much.

In the end, the group chaired by High Court judge Sean Ryan recommended a legal solution supported by regulations. "The matter we are asked to consider, which is essentially a technical question, is part of a larger debate," said Judge Ryan in the report.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.