Ms Abigail Rooney:

Choice Ireland thanks the committee for this opportunity to put forward the voices of the young women of Ireland at reproductive age who will be the most affected by this legislation. We congratulate the Government on finally commissioning a report on this and assuring the Irish public that legislation and regulations will be implemented in a timely manner. We also congratulate it on the success of the hearings over recent days which we hope will encourage future dialogue on the wider issues such as rape, incest, health and fatal foetal abnormalities.

Choice Ireland is a Dublin-based feminist pro-choice group which has been active since January 2007. We are a volunteer-run organisation campaigning for free access to accurate information on all crisis pregnancy options, proper sex education, free access to quality child care and free and legal abortion. We have been campaigning since our foundation for legislation on the X case and welcome the Government's decision to address this issue after 21 years of successive Governments failing to do so.

Statistics from the UK Department of Health suggest that 4,149 women provided Irish addresses to UK clinics providing abortion services in 2011. In addition, statistics compiled by the crisis pregnancy programme indicate that 1,470 women travelled from Ireland to the Netherlands between 2005 and 2009 to terminate their pregnancies. In addition, seizures made by the Irish Medicines Board suggest that many Irish women terminate pregnancies within the State by ordering medication over the Internet, which is an incredibly risky situation for these women who have resorted to self-medication.

At present, abortion is illegal in Ireland save in cases where there is a real and substantial threat to a pregnant woman's life which may only be addressed through the termination of her pregnancy. This right was established following the 1992 Supreme Court ruling in Attorney General v. X and Others. However, no legislation has been provided to give effect to this right. Two subsequent referenda in 1992 and later in 2002 attempted to remove suicide as a potential ground to terminate a pregnancy but both were defeated. Since then, no known cases have arisen from suicidal ideation, and one can only assume that due to this lack of clarity in Irish law many women will choose to travel abroad to terminate their pregnancies rather than face the Irish legal system.

In 2010 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights as women had no mechanism to allow them establish whether they had a right to an abortion in the State under the terms of the X case. The grounds under which abortion is allowed under the terms of the X case are strictly limited and would likely affect only a very tiny proportion of the thousands of Irish women who terminate their pregnancies every year for a multitude of valid reasons. Choice Ireland welcomes the Government's decision to legislate for the X case, but it is important to be cognisant of the fact that abortion access will continue to be strictly limited and will remain one of the most restrictive regimes in the world.

It is also important to note that legislating for the X case will not lead to a legal situation similar to that in the UK. UK abortion legislation allows for abortion in cases where there is a grave risk of physical or mental injury to a woman, and injury as opposed to death is the crucial difference. Our Constitution gives the foetus an equal right to life as the woman and it would simply not be possible to legislate for abortion in terms of physical or mental injury in this country, save for circumstances where such injury led to a substantial risk to the life of a woman. Further constitutional change would be required to do so. In saying this, our Constitution still does not recognise a woman's right to a termination in cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormalities, health or any other of the multitude of valid reasons abortion is legal in the vast majority of other developed nations.

Let us again consider the case that has brought us here today, which involved a 14 year old girl pregnant as a result of rape. Incredibly distressed and preferring to end her own life rather than be forced by the Irish State to continue with her pregnancy, she took her case to the Supreme Court to have her constitutional rights vindicated, and won. We are here today, 21 years on, to discuss what processes and procedures should be in place to ensure that when the life of another pregnant woman is in jeopardy, be it due to physical ailments or a risk of suicide, that her constitutional right to a termination is vindicated. Choice Ireland agrees with the European Court of Human Rights that women should have an effective means to access their human right. This is potentially a very distressing process for a woman to go through, and any procedure put in place to measure whether her life, as distinct from her health, is at risk, must be compassionate towards the patient and consider each case in a respectful and timely manner.

Ms Fay will go through some of our recommendations.