Brian Walsh (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome certain elements of the Bill, in so far as they pertain to circumstances in which there is a threat to the life of the mother for reasons of physical illness. It is an axiom of nature and logic that where a dilemma arises involving existing and contingent life that the former must take precedence. At all times in such circumstances, the life of the mother is paramount. This is law and established practice. I welcome the clarity the Bill offers to medical professionals by underpinning those principles in legislation. As a husband and father of two young girls, I also welcome the reassurance it offers women that every necessary treatment can be provided to protect the life of the mother where it is subject to real and substantial risk.

However, I continue to have several serious concerns about other aspects of the Bill. Foremost among these is section 9 which threatens to defile the Statute Book with the absurd premise that the suicidality of one human being can be abated by the destruction and killing of another.

This principle was conceived not in centres of medical excellence or centres of medical research but in the courts where judges are so often faced with tragic human dilemmas that defy the perfections of theory. Essentially, hard cases make bad law and there is no doubt that the Attorney General v.X case, in all of its heartbreaking detail, which Deputy Sandra McLellan outlined in her contribution, was one such hard case.

Two decades on the precedent with which it has left us has brought the Oireachtas to the verge of enacting a deeply flawed and dangerous piece of legislation which will undoubtedly make bad law. Proponents of the Bill have taken shelter in the argument that we are bound to legislate in line with the precedent set out in the X case. However, in a functioning democracy the role of the Legislature must not be merely to codify what is already law but to challenge existing laws and debate what should be the law.

It is no slight on the courts or the Constitution to call for a referendum to be held in order to address the incompatibility of certain aspects of the X case judgment with contemporary medical evidence regarding abortion and suicidality. Many have said that the question has been put to the people on two previous occasions and that is the case. However, in the intervening years since the X case and, crucially, since the two subsequent referenda were put to the people, compelling medical evidence and research has emerged affirming that abortion is not an appropriate course of action in the treatment of a patient presenting with suicidal ideation. In fact, the provision of abortion in such circumstances has been shown to result in more mental health problems than it would seek to negate.

The development of medical knowledge relating to this area in the period since the X case and abortion referenda is reflected in changes to the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists guidelines, which were amended in recent years in cognisance of the growing body of evidence regarding the increased risks of mental disorders following abortion. The Supreme Court did not have access to such evidence in reaching its decision in the X case. Equally, the people of Ireland voted in the referenda of 1992 and 2002 operated in an information vacuum regarding the appropriateness or otherwise of abortion as a treatment for suicidality.

It is incumbent on us, as legislators, to make the decisions that we make, with regard to the best possible information available to us at any given time. If, for example, we were to frame legislation concerning the health of women in pregnancy based on the best advice that was available 30 years ago, we could be looking at providing for symphysiotomy in the legislation. If we were to frame legislation concerning the health of women in pregnancy based on the best advice from a further 30 years back, 60 years ago, we could be looking at providing for the administration of thalidomide in the legislation. We are in the process of framing legislation for the protection of life during pregnancy today in 2013, and we must be guided by the evidence available to us today, not bound by a decision manufactured in the courts in 1992.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children provided a forum earlier this year where eminent representatives from the relevant fields of expertise came before us to present evidence to inform the framing of this Bill. I regret to say that we appear to have wasted their time. Psychiatrists appeared before the committee and affirmed that abortion is not an appropriate course of action in the treatment of suicidal ideation. They challenged the central premise for this tenet of the legislation, and were unequivocal that it had no basis whatsoever in medical evidence. Looking at the Bill that has subsequently come before the House, it is clear that those psychiatrists were listened to but not heard. It seems the hearings were a charade, a ploy to preoccupy dissent and mask the whole process with a veil of complicity and inclusion. In formulating the proposed legislation, the Government has ignored everything that those experts had to say and has come up with a Bill that has been shaped by political considerations rather than medical evidence.

In truth, abortion is no more a treatment for suicidal ideation than suicide is a treatment for suicidal ideation. We are poised to perpetuate in legislation, a fundamentally flawed premise that will be deeply damaging for women and devastating for the unborn.

The contents of the Bill, in so far as they pertain to suicidality, have been hammered out between the parties of Government over the Cabinet table. What we have as a result has been decided on the basis of what is best for the politician - the Labour politician in particular - rather than what is best for the mother and child.

Section 9 of the Bill also threatens to normalise suicide and represents a departure from best practice as outlined in suicide prevention guidelines. We are proposing to codify in legislation the premise that suicide is a legitimate option, the contemplation of which has the potential to make legal something that is otherwise illegal. Suicide is not an option. It is the manifestation of the false perception that there are no other options. Our efforts to date in suicide prevention have centred on getting the message out there that there are options, that one can seek help and that there is support available. Our guidelines state that suicide must never be represented as a valid choice. This Bill conflicts with that and it threatens to normalise suicide as a legitimate response to anxiety and distress. If a woman presents with suicidal ideation due to an unwanted pregnancy and she is granted an abortion on the basis that it is the only course of action that can avoid her suicide, what message does that send out to others, who are suicidal because of financial pressures or other identifiable causes? Are they to understand that, if the material circumstances causing their suicidality cannot be changed, that there is no prospect for them ever to feel better?

No less of a concern is the absence of a gestational time limit in the proposed legislation, which raises the prospect of gravely troubling scenarios with devastating outcomes for both mother and child. One such scenario is that of a pregnancy terminated under section 9 at 23 or 24 weeks' gestation, when the unborn child is on the very cusp of viability. The child may survive the termination of pregnancy but being prematurely induced at that stage exposes it to high risk of incurable conditions such as cerebral palsy, autism or respiratory disorders, perhaps consigning the child to a future of institutionalisation and disability. It is not difficult to envisage how a child needlessly damaged like this could ultimately have recourse to the courts arising from the State having failed in its duty of care.

The legislation will herald a fundamental shift in the culture of care in Irish hospitals. Our health care professionals in making every effort to protect the life of the mother and that of the child, in accordance with their own guidelines, have made Ireland one of the safest countries in the world for women in pregnancy, but what impact will this legislation have on that culture of care if one day a doctor is striving to save the lives of women and babies and the next he or she is gowning up to perform a procedure that will result in the intentional death of an unborn child? There are also legitimate concerns that the legislation, as proposed, has the potential to effect consequences far beyond its intended remit. Accordingly, the Bill has won the support of Members of this House who have professed a desire to see a much more liberal abortion regime than is envisaged here. It is seen as a stepping stone by those Members, some of whom we know to sit among us on this side of the House. One might not agree with the methods that were used to extract their points view but in a front page article in the Sunday Independent in recent weeks two Labour Party backbenchers clearly expressed that view, that they see this as a stepping stone to a more liberal abortion regime in the future.

It has also become apparent to me in recent months that people's understanding of the Bill is clouded by misperception and misrepresentation of the changes it effects in Irish law. The tragic death of Savita Halappanavar last year in my constituency of Galway West, in particular, has been a lightning rod for such misperception and has been wrongfully used to further one side of the debate. Her case has been cited as an example of why we need this legislation in order to avoid the same fate befalling another woman in an Irish hospital ever again. Let us be clear; the Bill does not change the law in so far as it applied to Savita's case. Had the gravity of the threat to her life been detected, a termination of her pregnancy could have been carried out under the existing law, as occurs on an average of 30 to 40 occasions per annum in Irish hospitals. That is the evidence we heard at the Oireachtas hearings. As the clinical review into her death affirmed, a failure to recognise the increasing risk to her life prevented hospital staff from taking the appropriate action in time.

Sadly, had this legislation been in effect at the time of that tragedy the outcome would have been no different. We can only speculate whether the confusion surrounding such matters has impacted on the results of recent opinion polls, but I am under no illusion that the stance I have adopted concerning this legislation is not popular or prudent from a political perspective. It is a decision for which I am likely to pay a heavy price. However, if political isolation and electoral defeat is the price of doing what I believe to be right and acting in the best interests of the people I represent, then I will gladly pay it. Too often in the past, our decisions have been guided by what is popular and political foresight has extended only as far as the next election. It is because of that mindset that we find ourselves in the economic crisis from which we are now trying to recover. It is time to look in a different direction towards what is clearly right rather than what is momentarily popular. I hope those of us with shared sentiments on this most sensitive of issues can be accommodated within Fine Gael. There should be no doubt that if the enactment of this legislation gets the political sanction of those who stand against it, Fine Gael, not my colleagues and I, will have digressed from our party's values. Fine Gael made a promise prior to the last election that it would uphold in the duty of care to the life of the unborn. I made a similar commitment on the doorsteps during the election campaign. That is a commitment I intend to keep. A senior Minister recently asked: "Isn't that what you do at election time?" It is not what I do at election time, and it is not what I intend to do in respect of this Bill.

Given the seriousness of the matters before us and the deep concerns held by a number of Members of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party, I am disappointed that no concession has been made to accommodate our views. This has left my colleagues and me in an unenviable dilemma in which we are being forced to choose between our careers and our consciences. It is particularly disappointing that dissenting views have not been accommodated given that Fine Gael has precedent in so doing. In 1993 the party decided to modify the application of penalties for breach of the Whip to accommodate three Deputies who indicated that they would vote against the party in support of a Bill proposed by the late Tony Gregory to ban hare coursing. The three Deputies, one of whom was our colleague, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, were allowed to remain in the parliamentary party after they voted against the Whip on that Bill. Regrettably, it appears that Fine Gael will accommodate a vote of conscience on legislation concerning the welfare of hares but it will not do so in respect on legislation concerning the welfare of women and children. Speaking in the debate in relation to that Bill, the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, said:

There is a need in this Parliament for us to grow up. There are fundamental issues of economic and social policy which require political parties to impose a party Whip to ensure a degree of political discipline and coherence. There are other issues to which the tyranny of the Whip or, indeed the protection of the Whip, should not apply....If all of the major parties allowed a free vote on issues such as this, Governments would not fall, nor would political parties disintegrate. There would be no political cataclysm. The institutions of the State would not collapse. The removal of the Whip might also restore some of the general public's faith in politicians.

Regardless of whether a free vote is granted, I accept that I stand in a minority in opposing the Bill and that it has sufficient support to ensure its passage through the House. I intend to submit amendments on Committee Stage to address the concerns I have expressed. I expect that the absurd principle underpinning this legislation will end up where it began, before the courts.

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