The Master of the National Maternity Hospital says the 8th amendment to the constitution creates unacceptable clinical risks for women.
Dr Rhona Mahony has told the Oireachtas Committee on the Amendment that doctors must allow a woman's life to be threatened before they can act, even when a foetus is not viable.
At the same meeting the Master of the Rotunda Professor Fergal Malone said his hospital has had one patient who died in the UK from a catastrophic haemorrhage after leaving a London abortion clinic.
In this exchange with Senator Ronan Mullen, Dr Mahony said the 8th amendment should be removed:
