In her political column for RTÉ's Drivetime, Olivia O'Leary lists some of the questions she would like to see answered in the Dáil debate on abortion.
The important thing about the abortion debate is that we are given the information which allows us to make a considered decision.
We will, all of us in this country, have to make our minds up later this year to keep or remove the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution which bans abortion - or indeed replace it in the constitution with something else.
That referendum decision inevitably will be influenced by what draft law the Government publishes beforehand to address the situation if the constitutional abortion ban is removed.
The indication is that the Government will follow the report the all-party Oireachtas committee which recommends that legislation be prepared to allow for abortion on request up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.
The Dáil is going to address this issue this evening and tomorrow. It is important that we listen and learn and ask questions.
And there are questions. Would a regime of allowing abortion on request up to 12 weeks mean that effectively abortion will be handled in the privacy of GPs' surgeries, or family planning or women’s health clinics with the use of the abortion pill; and that cases of bleeding or complications which arise in a small number of cases would be dealt with discreetly as part of any hospital’s gynaecological services?
And, if one were looking at it simply from the point of view of political expediency, would this avoid having abortion clinics which have become the focus of protest in other countries particularly the United States?
Those in favour of abortion on request up to 12 weeks make the point that it is better that women are prescribed the abortion pill by, and take it under supervision of, their own GP than that they get it on the internet as so many do at the moment or that they are forced to head for a strange town and abortion clinic in England.
This, however, will make extra work for GPs, not only in prescribing the pill and counselling beforehand but also in helping patients to deal with the aftermath of what is a planned miscarriage. Some patients will handle it. Others will be upset and will perhaps need counselling.
Will GPs get the extra training and extra resources to meet this new need?
Who are the two "specialist physicians" whom the Oireachtas committee suggest will decide if a woman’s request for abortion is to be granted?
Would that be two GPs or do consultant physicians have to be approached which brings the whole process outside the realm of the GP’s surgery?
The question has been raised by the Fianna Fáil spokesman on justice that there might be fewer children born with Down syndrome if people could have abortions up to 12 weeks but is it possible to test for Down syndrome within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy? I haven’t been able to get a definitive answer.
If a limit of 12 weeks is to be set, how then can one deal with cases of fatal foetal abnormality which may be detected later on in a pregnancy. Will no exceptions be made for these?
In some cases of rape or incest, the victim may not admit to being pregnant until a pregnancy is well advanced.
Is any exception to be made for a later abortion there? What about the fact that rape is notoriously difficult to prove in a courtroom. If an exception to the 12-week limit is to be allowed, what level of proof will be required for a termination?
Will the Government take up the committee’s recommendation that the 14-year jail threat to women who obtain illegal abortions be got rid of? Would that be the end of such sanctions against women who obtain abortions regarded as illegal, for instance after the 12-week limit?
Many people who vote in the expected referendum this summer will want to know what sort of law will follow if the constitutional ban on abortion is removed.
The Dáil will be debating recommendations which could be regarded as a suggested first draft of that law.
It would be a pity if the opportunity to have a calm and honest look at shaping our future were lost in a drawn battle between polar opposites on the issue of abortion.
