Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, Deputy Harris, for being in the Seanad today and all of the ongoing work he is involved in, firstly as an advocate for change and also in the Department of Health in preparing for a post-eighth amendment health care service if the referendum is successful. He is very welcome, as are all his efforts in this area. I welcome the Bill and that Ireland will soon have a chance to vote on this important issue. We are here today to right the wrong that was done to Irish women when the eighth amendment was inserted into the Constitution in 1983. Article 40.3.3° in our Constitution was a gross interference by the State in the private lives and decisions of every woman in Ireland. It said to women that their bodies are not their own, that they are not the ones in control of their own lives, that they cannot be trusted with decisions around their own health and autonomy, and instead, a blunt constitutional instrument of less than 50 words shall be what dictates the lives of every pregnant woman in Ireland.

It is the crowning achievement of a State and a church that colluded in every single way possible to subjugate women, limit their autonomy and, when they stepped out of line, to shame them and hide them away. The eighth amendment is not an outlier. It is the apex of the archaic, misogynistic movement within this country that shamed woman for sex, that forbade them access to abortion and contraception, that forbade them recourse in unhappy marriages and that hid them in mother and baby homes and forced them to atone for their sins in the laundries. Now, thankfully, many of the hallmarks of an Ireland that was openly hostile to women are gone, and the power of the people and the institutions that oppressed them has abated. The Ireland of 2018 is unrecognisably different from the Ireland of 1983. However, the crowning achievement of the conservative forces within this country still remains with those few sentences in the Constitution that tell women their bodies are not their own and that the State cares not for their individual circumstances.

It is in the full knowledge of how we got to this point that I am so proud to be here as Ireland exorcises its demons from mistreating women since the foundation of the State. The slow dismantling of a shameful culture that shamed women for their own bodies has led us here. That is why I am so certain that a "Yes" vote in the upcoming referendum is the right thing to do - pure and simple. I was incredibly proud to be a member of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution and contribute to the recommendations that have led us here today. The eighth amendment is a barrier to the true equality of women in this State and I will welcome its repeal.

I will also welcome the repeal of the rest of Article 40.3.3° and the end of the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments which allowed for the extraordinarily hypocritical and deeply unjust situation where an Irish woman has a constitutional right, guaranteed by her own State, to travel abroad and receive information about a service that her own country did not deem her worthy enough to provide for her in an Irish hospital. We left Liverpool and London to care for the women who should have been in Limerick and Galway, and it was abjectly wrong.

I look forward to the campaign; I will be doing all I can to achieve a "Yes" vote, to explain to people why they are being asked this question and why it matters. I hope that all politicians who support repeal will be going forward from today to campaign in support of their position. We need to become ambassadors for what we know to be true about abortion access in Ireland. We need to go out into our communities, have conversations with neighbours, family and peers and make the case for repeal. I encourage people to get out and canvass in their local areas. They should not worry if they do not convince someone on the spot. All we need to do is give them a seed of something to think about before referendum day.

We have to be compassionate and accepting. We need to understand that for many people this will be the first time they have had to seriously think about this issue. We need to listen and we need not to shout people down for having valid concerns. There will be much commentary over the coming weeks about the language we should and should not use, about what language will convince the undecided and what language will not. Some will make the debate about politics by stating that we have allowed the State, men or the establishment control our bodies for far too long. Some will say that the church’s influence over our lives and our decisions needs to end. Some will focus their energies on pointing out why the eighth amendment is medically dangerous or legally unworkable.

We will hear that a beating heart is life. It is indeed potential life, but not a human existing in this world. Developing life is not a human with human experience. I value life and I value its development, but I value myself more. I value my daughters more, I value my friends more and I value women more. Everyone will feel a different argument works for them. Everyone will feel that different language is appropriate. They will talk about power, control and choice. Everyone's approach this is, of course, legitimate.

However, for me, I am a woman, I have two daughters, I have a job that I care about, I have an amazing mother and I have a boyfriend, a brother and relationships with friends. I have human rights and constitutional rights. I experience emotion. I have a sense of myself and the world. I depend on only myself to exist in the world. I breathe, I live, I sleep, I cry and I love. My daughters do also. For me, I come first, you come first, and my girls come first. I would choose me. I would choose Jordanne and Jaelynne. If that decision had to be made to terminate a pregnancy - a potential life - I would choose us. A woman's lived experience, existence and rights must come before the rights of a potential experience, existence and life.

It is time for Ireland to accept the realities and experiences of its citizens. It is time for our country to right the wrongs of our history and become the modern, progressive nation that we aspire to, and where women are equal, their decisions are respected and their autonomy is protected. That is the Ireland I want to live in, that is the Ireland I want my daughters to live in and it is the Ireland we can live in, if we vote to repeal the eighth amendment.