Dr. Seán Ó Domhnaill:

Members of the committee, members of the public and public representatives, I am a consultant in general adult psychiatry working in the public, independent and voluntary sectors where I deal with the broadest possible case mix. I have also worked as a consultation liaison psychiatrist with particular responsibility for perinatal psychiatry in Ireland for more than two of the last three years.

I began my career in psychiatry in Jersey in 1997 one month before the legalisation of abortion on that island. My very first assessment of an attempted suicide victim occurred in my first weekend on call in Jersey when I was asked to review a 19 year old girl who had taken a large overdose of medication. During the assessment, when I asked her why she had sought this ending to her life, she indicated that she had been pressured six months earlier by her parents and boyfriend to undergo a termination of pregnancy, and because abortion was not legal in Jersey at that time she was forced to travel to Southampton where she had the abortion against her will. Six months later she had descended into a profound depression and attempted to end her life as a result. At the time of the assessment as I tried to discuss with her how she would recover from this depression, and I remember it clearly, she said, "Can you tell me I have not killed my own baby? Can you tell me I can undo what I have done? Can you tell me how to bring my baby back?".

I hope I am in a better position today to answer those questions which are asked of me on a frequent basis. In may day-to-day work I frequently come across women who find themselves in situations they describe as crisis pregnancies or unplanned pregnancies. In the past 12 months alone, I can refer to a case of a lady who, 22 years previously, had undergone an abortion. Her husband reported that in the intervening 22 years, for a period of approximately three weeks around the anniversary of the abortion, she suffered a marked depressive mood. I also know of a 21 year old patient who presented for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, having had an abortion on the advice of her mother and her aunts seven years previously. These people have been left out of the hearings, to a large extent.

The third edition of Revision Notes in Psychiatry, edited by Professor Basant Puri, which is the major text book on psychiatry states, "Only 10% of women suffer with severe or prolonged sequelae as a result of induced abortion". The word "only" shows the approach being taken to women who suffer as a result of abortion. This percentage amounts to approximately 19,000 women in Britain and 400 in Ireland per year.