Dr. Catherine Conlon:

As a social researcher, I would be the person who would have to do that research. The first thing I would have to do is go to my university ethics committee and ask if I could go back and speak to people who attended a GP and who did not return for the second consultation. First of all, there is GDPR. Any research ethics committee in the medical domain will not allow me to access the names and details of people who attended for the first consultation. I then go to public awareness-raising and say that I wish to speak to people who attended for a first consultation and voluntarily did not attend for a second consultation and to volunteer for my research. The ethics committee then has to determine, as Ms O'Shea said earlier, whether it is ethical that I ask a person about that particular moment in time when they went to a GP in distress about a pregnancy and about the moment in time when they made the decision not to return. I have to ask them to talk about a moment in time in their pregnancy when they were considering termination that they have now continued and they possibly have the child from that pregnancy in a cot in their home where I am interviewing them. I would not expect that of any ethics committee. Our experience is that no ethics committee would see that as an ethical practice.

When the Senator says the research has not been done, I wonder to what extent he is aware of what is entailed in doing that research, both from the practice of the research as a social researcher and from the perspective of the participant. Our main ethical dimension as a social researcher is to do no harm. If we are to ask a person who has proceeded with the pregnancy to sit and revisit the moment they were with a GP and considered termination, I am not sure that it is not doing no harm. We have to be really aware of what we are asking for when we are saying that research needs to be done.