Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----and the hurt and pain they carry following their abortions. If the Bill is also based on evidence, why has that evidence not been presented? It is as if one wrote an academic paper in a university and did not source any of one's information. One would receive a fail grade and be in trouble on grounds of plagiarism. Where is the evidence to back up the provisions included in the Bill?

Likewise, the Government cannot claim that it has reached out to the women affected because it has not. It has ignored them every step of the way. It is interested in only one side of the story. That is not democracy and not the way of a true republic. The Bill is not life-saving. If it were, I would be the first to support it, but I cannot support it and will not vote for it. I compliment Deputy Micheál Martin and the Fianna Fáil Party on allowing a free vote because it is proper and right to allow people to make up their own minds and not to impose the Whip system on people elected by the people in their constituencies to come here to use their intelligence, their own research and experiences of life.

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