The Twelfth Amendment Bill, which would have excluded the risk of suicide as grounds for abortion was rejected.

It was introduced by the Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats coalition government led by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

The government presented the amendment as one part of a comprehensive package of changes to address the issue of crisis pregnancy.

Section 1 defined abortion as "the intentional destruction by any means of unborn human life after implantation in the womb of a woman".

It further stated that abortion did not include "the carrying out of a medical procedure by a medical practitioner at an approved place in the course of which or as a result of which unborn human life is ended where that procedure is, in the reasonable opinion of the practitioner, necessary to prevent a real and substantial risk of loss of the woman's life other than by self-destruction".

[2] It was intended that after the passage of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the Oireachtas would enact the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Act.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy) Bill 2001 was proposed in the Dáil by Minister for Health and Children Micheál Martin on 25 October 2001.

Eleven years later, under a coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 was enacted, which provided for abortion in circumstances where there was a real and substantial threat to life of the pregnant woman, including from a risk of suicide.