The Review Group appreciates that there are much wider considerations involved than constitutional or legal provisions but it is on these that the Review Group must necessarily focus. The state of the law, both before and after the X case decision, gives rise to much dissatisfaction. There is no definition of 'unborn' which, used as a noun, is at least odd. One would expect 'unborn human' or 'unborn human being'. Presumably, the term 'unborn child' was not chosen because of uncertainty as to when a foetus might properly be so described.
Definition is needed as to when the 'unborn' acquires the protection of the law.
Unborn' seems to imply 'on the way to being born' or 'capable of being born'. Whether this condition obtains as from fertilisation of the ovum, implantation of the fertilised ovum in the womb, or some other point, has not been defined. If the definition of 'pregnancy' did not fully cover what is envisaged by 'unborn', the deficiency would need to be remedied by separate legal provisions which could deal also with other complex issues, such as those associated with the treatment of infertility and in vitro fertilisation. At present, all these difficulties are left to the Supreme Court to resolve without explicit guidance. The impossibility of reconciling the 'equal' rights to life of the 'unborn' and the mother, when the two rights come into conflict, was manifested in the X case.