Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Brady for his presentation. Does the Irish Council for Civil Liberties hold a different position on foetal abnormality as opposed to fatal foetal abnormality? I ask that for a specific reason. Medics deal in probabilities and can also get it wrong. I am very conscious of a recent meeting with a mother who had been living in the UK. As I recall how she described it to me, when she was pregnant with twins she was told they were the next stage to conjoined twins and she was advised to have an abortion on the basis of foetal abnormality. She returned to Ireland and decided to carry those babies to full term. They are now happy healthy six-year olds running around in a school playground. That is how she described it to me.

A changed legislative context changes how we behave and how we think. It can also bring undue influence on a pregnant woman. How would Dr. Brady say that women's rights would be infringed if we had the legislative context he is proposing in this jurisdiction? How would he respond to the evidence of healing for women who carry to full term babies who may have fatal foetal abnormalities? What about the rights of those women in that context?