Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will refer to some of the Technical Group's section 9 amendments that are in this grouping, but I also wish to comment on some of the amendments tabled by the Minister of State, Deputy Lucinda Creighton, and others who are opposed full stop to the section, who are coming at it from a different perspective. Deputy Tóibín and the Minister of State referred a number of times to the concern they have about the floodgates opening. It is important to respond to this point. In recent hours I listened to the debate, which often got bogged down in the important and necessary detail of the Bill and the arguments around that detail. It is important to say that in so far as the term "floodgates" is even useful in this debate - I am not sure it is - the floodgates are open. Whatever happens with this Bill will not affect one jot the number of desperate Irishwomen who seek and receive abortions. Desperate women whose health or whose lives are at risk, desperate women who are suicidal, desperate women who get the awful news that their baby has been diagnosed with a fatal abnormality, desperate women in a whole range of circumstances will still make the decision to have an abortion. The only issue is where they will have that abortion, not whether they will have it. Those who profess to be pro-life or anti-abortion when they make their arguments fail to acknowledge that fundamental point. Abortion is an Irish reality and Irishwomen in their thousands are forced to travel to Britain to receive the treatment they need or want.

In spite of those Deputies who propose to strike section 9 from the Bill, although it is clear the Government will not accept their arguments, women will still seek those abortions. It will make no difference. The Deputies have to answer that question if they are addressing these issues in good conscience. If women need or are going to seek those abortions in any case, do those Deputies believe it is acceptable or right that those women are forced to go abroad and be away from their homes, with all the stigma, without support and in spite of the costs involved? I believe it is unacceptable, and those who call themselves pro-life and express a concern for the care of women must address that point.

The Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, made the argument that it was the job of the Oireachtas, not the Supreme Court, to legislate. The implication that what we are doing in legislating for the X case was somehow dictated by the Supreme Court, which was going outside its remit, is a very legalistic and convoluted argument that does not stand up at all. The Supreme Court has not dictated to the Parliament. We know that because its judgment was made 20 years ago, yet the Parliament still has not legislated for it. It was forced to legislate not because of anything the Supreme Court said but because of the tragic case of Savita Halappanavar. That is why we are here today. It is why we have finally been forced to deal with this issue. We had tragedy after tragedy and then, most recently, we had the awful and terrible case of Savita Halappanavar. The argument made by the Minister of State in comparing the threat of suicide in this situation to a threat of suicide by a person who may be deported is a terrible one that tries to undermine the seriousness of that threat.

People who are deported generally speaking receive awful treatment. They are incarcerated, they are often grabbed in the middle of the night, in many cases they are bound and gagged and shoved onto planes with little or no regard for the consequences of their deportation. For the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Deputy Creighton, to say that to concede the argument of somebody facing that prospect who might feel suicidal would be to open the floodgates to people to make false claims of suicidal ideation in order to avoid deportation, desperately trivialises the horror of deportation for many people who face that reality. When she says the alternative put forward in a case to which she referred, that there should be a care plan, as she proposes in cases of suicidal ideation in pregnancy, and compares that with a judge saying a care plan is necessary for someone who faces deportation and says they might be suicidal, she should acknowledge that no such care plan is ever put in place for deportees, irrespective of whether they say they are suicidal. They are just bound, gagged, put on a plane and deported once the decision has been made to deport them. It is a very bad comparison for the Minister of State to make. The logic of it is to suggest that women who threaten to commit suicide, or say they are suicidal because they are pregnant should be incarcerated rather than have their wishes for a termination granted. That is completely unacceptable.

It is a pity that some of those who oppose abortion have constantly said, and say again in the debate on this group of amendments, that abortion is not a treatment for suicide, as if that were ever the issue. Nobody has ever claimed abortion was a treatment for suicide. Those who oppose giving the women who are suicidal and whose lives are at risk as a result of suicidal ideation need honestly to admit, or at least address when debating this issue, that if a woman is pregnant and feels suicidal at the thought of continuing with that pregnancy, and if she is forced against her will to carry on that pregnancy, that will almost inevitably increase the anxiety, suffering and stress she will feel and very likely contribute to a greater risk to her life and of her carrying through with that threat of suicide. It does not mean that having the right to a termination automatically does away with suicidal ideation but they surely must acknowledge that forcing a woman who does not want to have a child and feels suicidal at the thought of having one is dangerous and puts women's lives at risk.

As other speakers have said, there is an unacceptable and unsustainable distinction being made by those who oppose any limited introduction of abortion in the case of suicidal ideation. They are making an untenable distinction between physical and mental health, suggesting that somehow the bar that one has to reach for a threat to one's life because of mental illness or suicidal ideation should be higher than it would be for a physical medical emergency. In medicine no such distinction is made. No distinction can be made in medicine between a physical and a psychological threat to life and it is wrong to do so.

I disagree fundamentally with the arguments that these people make. My problem with section 9 is the opposite of theirs because sadly, as a political fudge, the Government has made unnecessary and unacceptable concessions to the untenable arguments made by those who oppose any limited introduction of abortion in the case of a possible suicide. The Government also makes the distinction in the legislation between a physical threat to life and a threat to life as a result of suicidal ideation or psychiatric illness. The Minister makes that distinction in the Bill and I believe it is absolutely untenable. As I said on Committee Stage, and the point was made very strongly to the Minister by psychiatrists and groups such as Doctors for Choice, if somebody has to be certified in a situation where there is no pregnancy involved as being a threat to themselves, as a result of mental illness, there is only a requirement for one psychiatrist and a GP. There is no requirement for two psychiatrists, an obstetrician and indeed a fourth doctor, in that the Bill requires consultation with the GP as well. Why does the Minister make that distinction? There simply is no basis for doing it. It puts more obstacles in the way of women whose lives are at risk and who are feeling suicidal because of their pregnancies. The Minister is making that distinction only because there is a pregnancy. That means he is in a dangerous way playing fast and loose with a threat to the life of a woman, putting extra obstacles in her way in accessing the service she needs or feels she needs. That is unacceptable. That requirement, among other serious flaws and weaknesses in this Bill, has forced some of us who are pro-choice to say we simply cannot vote for it. Much as we wanted a Bill that would legislate for the X case and even if, as far as we were concerned, it did not go far enough, we would have voted for it, had the Minister not tightened it up to such an extent that it is actually regressive and puts more restrictions in the way of women accessing terminations when they need them than there were before this Bill was drafted. That is quite shameful on the part of the Government.

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