Change is in our hands

■ In February 1983, the late Peter Sutherland, then attorney general, said of the proposed Eighth Amendment, “the wording is ambiguous and unsatisfactory”, adding that it would lead to confusion and uncertainty, mainly because of the difficulty in defining precisely the term “the unborn”.

He predicted that when faced with treating a pregnant woman, fearing it would impinge on the constitutionally equal right to life of the unborn, medical professionals might be obliged to do nothing, leading to catastrophic results for the pregnant woman.

Most of the people who suffered from the Eighth Amendment remained, and to a large extent remain, anonymous.

We know of their suffering through the extreme cases named for letters of the alphabet.

Those opposed to change would say hard cases make bad laws. But the hard cases made by this bad law are painfully familiar. Those affected are Irish

citizens – sisters, colleagues, friends, mothers, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers.

It spares no-one – not the couple who have to travel because of a diagnosis of a terminal foetal abnormality, nor a woman who can’t for whatever reason carry on with a pregnancy, nor the person refused life-changing treatment because of a pregnancy. The Eighth Amendment affects anyone with a womb and anyone who cares for them.

Successive governments have dodged the issue and avoided the dilemma until now. The nettle has been grasped and we citizens now have the chance to remove this flawed amendment, which has caused so much suffering, from our Constitution. Change is in our hands. Siobhán Nevin Dunmore, Co Galway