Children’s Minister James Reilly has called for a referendum on the eighth amendment, which gives equal right to the life of the mother and the unborn child, early in the term of the next government.
The Fine Gael deputy leader told the Sunday Independent that women carrying babies with fatal foetal abnormalities should not be forced to carry on with the pregnancy.
He said: “Most repugnant to me is that they have to leave the country for a termination and then sneak back in like criminals to bring their babies’ remains back.
“I can’t countenance, either as a doctor or a human being, the situation that women find themselves in relation to fatal foetal anomalies and the nightmare they have to live on a daily basis.”
Reilly also said that he thinks it’s “very difficult to ask a woman who has been raped and violated to continue to carry a child.”
The comments come after a number of Irish healthcare professionals signed an open letter calling for the decriminalization of abortion in Ireland.
