The all-party Committee on the Constitution is to report to the government on the best way of tackling the abortion issue. At present, a woman whose life is in danger is entitled to have an abortion, although in practice, no hospital in the Republic of Ireland offers abortion facilities.

Pro-life groups say the loophole created by a Supreme Court judgment must be closed by a constitutional amendment. They say that legislative change would be inadequate as the law could be altered again at a later stage to allow abortion.

Bishop Laurence Ryan of Kildare and Leighlin told the committee the Irish Bishops’ Conference believed a constitutional amendment could be formulated which would adequately protect the right to life of the unborn.

“We believe that what is required is a constitutional amendment that would protect the right to life of the unborn child, while recognizing that an expectant mother who is ill must receive such medical treatment as is necessary, even when that treatment, as a side-effect, puts her unborn child at risk,” he said.

Bishop Ryan said it was a matter of justice, and in the interests of equality, that everybody had the right not to have his life treated as a means to an end, that such a right should be enshrined in the Constitution, and that the direct and intentional taking of an innocent human life should be prohibited.

“It is singularly appropriate that such a basic value should be stated clearly in the document which establishes our legal and political system,” he said. “The need for such a clear statement of principle or value is rendered even more urgent by the fact that the Supreme Court interpreted the existing constitutional wording in a manner that does not offer full and meaningful protection to the right to life of the unborn child.”

The Irish Supreme Court had decided that a pregnant teenage girl was entitled to an abortion because she threatened suicide. But the bishops said the judgment was “seriously flawed.”

“If that judgment is allowed to stand as an authoritative statement of Irish law and, further, if that principle were to be enacted into legislation in this jurisdiction, then we would be confronted with well-meaning but erroneous law reform. This would be to deal with difficult situations by abandoning the fundamental principle that every human life is of value in itself,” said Bishop Ryan.