Ms Orla O'Connor:

I thank the committee for inviting the NWCI to present to it. The NWCI is the national membership organisation of women's groups and women. We comprise more than 160 member organisations representing a wide and diverse range of women's groups throughout the country. Our mission is to achieve women's equality by empowering them to work together for the removal of structural, political, economic, cultural and effective inequalities.

The NWCI welcomes the Government's announcement on the introduction of legislation and regulation in respect of abortion, as recommended by the Government's expert group. We recommended that this was the only way to give effect to the judgments in the 1992 X case in the Supreme Court and the A, B and C v. Ireland case in the European Court of Human Rights. We welcome this opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the forthcoming legislation.

We will make four key points. First, the NWCI has worked on the issue of abortion for more than 30 years. Our position on abortion has developed over time in recognition of the diversity of women's views and perspectives on the issue. The NWCI is well placed to make a considered contribution to this debate and we have been mandated by our vast and diverse membership to adopt a pro-choice position. This position is rooted in an analysis of gender equality and women's human rights.

Recently, the NWCI led an online campaign to legislate for the X case. Some committee members will be aware that more than 72,000 e-mails were sent to Deputies in every constituency by more than16,000 women and men. We have the support of our membership in calling for the provision of abortion in certain circumstances, particularly where a woman has a life-threatening pregnancy, including the risk of suicide. This support has also been reflected in recent opinion polls, which reveal that 85% of the population supports abortion where the woman's life is threatened, including by suicide. Irish laws are clearly out of step with public opinion and the time has come to introduce legislation as a matter of urgency to provide access to abortion services in Ireland.

Our role is to give voice to the experiences of women who remain largely voiceless in this debate due to the stigma surrounding abortion in Ireland and to support women's access to reproductive health.

The legislation must immediately repeal sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which criminalises abortion in all circumstances. As the European Court of Human Rights observed in its judgment, the criminal provisions of the Act constitute a significant chilling factor for women and doctors in the medical consultation process regardless of whether prosecutions have been made. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health stated during his visit to Ireland last month, criminal laws and other legal restrictions disempower women who may be deterred from taking steps to protect their health for fear of stigmatisation and to avoid liability.

Our members have reported to us that women accessing counselling services on their options in crisis pregnancy situations are terrified of the possibility of going to jail and feel like criminals. Even in accessing lawful information services, they believed that they may have been doing something criminal. It is unacceptable that an outdated and archaic law makes women feel this way. It is our opinion that abortion must be decriminalised if legislation and the regulation approach is to be accessible and effective and to remove the shame, stigma and discrimination that women must endure as a result of these criminal provisions.

Second, the NWCI advocates that the legislation must provide for regulations that allow for a practical assessment by doctors and women of a real and substantial risk to the life of the pregnant woman. It must also provide for an accessible review framework to examine or resolve differences of opinion between a woman and her doctor or doctors. The legislation and regulation must place a duty of care on health service providers to ensure that women receive appropriate information and care, including post abortion.

The regulations must place a woman's right to reproductive autonomy at the heart of all procedures and services. This autonomy is reflected in the expert group's report in the chapter on the general principles that should apply to the implementation of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. It can be achieved by ensuring that the proposed regulations, procedures and services created by them undergo a gender mainstreaming process so that they are gender sensitive to the particular needs of women and respect the capacity of each woman to make decisions concerning her own reproductive health. The gender mainstreaming of health policy planning and service delivery is a firm commitment by the Government under the national women's strategy, which will continue until 2016.

Furthermore, it is important that all reproductive health services be physically and financially accessible to all women without discrimination. Over the years, our members have communicated to us the lack of agency that women feel while accessing reproductive services. It is crucial that women be active participants in terms of their reproductive health in conjunction with their doctors.

The legislation and subsequent regulations must cover the threat of suicide as a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother. There are cases in which the risk of suicide would constitute grounds for abortion and women must be viewed and trusted as individuals having agency who are capable of making considered decisions about their reproductive health. Proper and fair medical assessment procedures should be in place to assess whether the risk of suicide constitutes a real and substantial risk, as provided for in the X case. It is insulting to women and people with mental health difficulties for groups to claim that women would be likely to fabricate suicidal tendencies in an effort to seek access to abortion in Ireland. The legislation and regulations should reflect the fact that there have been and will continue to be cases in which crisis pregnancies trigger, or aggravate, existing mental health conditions.

As a matter of urgency, the NWCI asks the Government to implement legislative measures that will decriminalise abortion, cover the situation of life-threatening pregnancies, including the risk of suicide, and place women's reproductive autonomy at the heart of all procedures and services. In these discussions, it is also important to acknowledge that introducing legislation to give effect to the X case will make Ireland's abortion laws and practices some of the most restrictive globally. For many of our members, particularly women who have had abortions as a result of fatal foetal abnormalities or rape, this legislation will not provide an answer. For the more than 4,000 women who travel to the UK and beyond ever year, Irish law will still provide no support or resolution.

The NWCI believes that achieving access to safe and legal abortion is critical. Women must be in a position to make personal decisions about their bodies and health care free from coercion, discrimination and threat of incarceration. Legislation to give effect to the X case is the urgent and outstanding issue and the NWCI urges the introduction of such legislation early this year.