ABORTION is one of the most contentious issues that politicians will ever have to wrestle with. In the midst of heated arguments we, as legislators, have a duty to bring a calm and balanced approach to the issue. Thus, while our decision must be informed by compassion, it must also be grounded in evidence.

Currently, the government case for abortion has centred on the notion that intervention may be needed to save the life of the mother. This is completely credible. But it has also been argued that legislation must be introduced along the lines of the X case, to allow access to abortion where a pregnant woman is suicidal. This is problematic.

The evidence given at the Oireachtas Health hearings in January heard expert testimony from a series of psychiatrists. Not one single expert witness, regardless of their pro-life or pro-choice leanings, testified that abortion was an appropriate, never mind a necessary, treatment for pregnant women with suicidal ideation or intent.

For me as a legislator, this evidence, along with new evidence that suggests that abortion may actually damage women's health, or lead them to become suicidal, was an eye-opener.

Certainly I respect the decisions of our highest court. But in coming to its decision in the X case (1992), the Supreme Court did not have the benefit of any psychiatric evidence or other relevant research.

Legislators are not under an obligation to pass legislation that they now know could actually threaten women's lives rather than save them.

The onus of proof is now on those who support legislation on the grounds of suicide to explain the medical justification for such a proposal. In examining 61 years of data, psychiatrist Patricia Casey has found from over 1.25 million pregnancies in the three main Dublin maternity hospitals, that there was one death by suicide at 30 weeks and not due to the pregnancy itself.

It is worth bearing in mind that pregnant women still die by suicide in Britain even though abortion is freely available because of under-treated mental illness, which is the kernel of the problem.

Tragically, we know that although abortion is not available in Irish hospitals, thousands of Irish women go to the UK every year to obtain these. We need to reflect on why this is so and seek solutions.

Are we offering women positive alternatives to abortion? At present, the HSE has a programme, Positive Options. But while it offers much helpful information, it provides few substantive alternatives to women who are often in stressful situations, who may not want an abortion but feel they have no other options. As legislators, we must strive to provide more compassionate, hopeful responses.

We must work on changing the attitudes of fathers/partners/ spouses, the workplace and sometimes parents who may be the pressure point – the reason why the pregnant woman feels she has no choice but to choose abortion. And for women who feel they can't cope with a baby, can we support them through nine months to generously give their baby to adoption?

Abortion is an emotive and sensitive subject. Politicians in all parties have a variety of deep and sincerely held convictions on the matter which may influence their decision. It should not be one on which people are forced to vote against their conscience or lose the party whip for doing so.

No one would dream of forcing a doctor to carry out an abortion if it violated his or her deeply held beliefs. But a politician voting for abortion legislation will, over time, be responsible for far more abortions than any one doctor. So why should we, as legislators, not also have a right to follow our conscience on this issue? It should not simply be a case of political expediency.

As politicians we have a duty to give the abortion issue our fullest scrutiny. The decision we arrive at must be evidence-based, rather than driven by emotion, or worse, by political calculation.

We cannot play politics with this. We are talking about the lives of our women and of our future citizens, the wealth of our nation.

Irish Independent