Ms Ailbhe Smyth:

Action on X welcomes this opportunity to make a presentation to the Joint Committee on Health and Children and to contribute to this public discussion on the issue of legislating for abortion in Ireland. This is, in many respects, a historic event, not least for those of us who have been seeking to achieve reproductive integrity autonomy and choice for women in Ireland since the late 1970s.

Formed in 2011, Action on X is an alliance of groups and individuals, including Irish Choice Network, Choice Ireland, Irish Feminist Network, Feminist Open Forum and others, who call on the Irish Government to act immediately to implement appropriate legislation on the right to abortion in Ireland. I will now outline the current views of Action on X on the issue of abortion.

With its colleagues from Choice Ireland and the National Women's Council, Action on X calls for immediate repeal of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which criminalises doctors performing abortions and women who have them. Action on X agrees with the view of the European Court of Human Rights and Dr. Rhona Mahony of the National Maternity Hospital that the chilling effect of the 1861 Act is a significant impediment for women. We believe there is no good reason this punitive law cannot be repealed without further discussion or delay. To those who have said in this Chamber that there is no need to repeal sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act because no criminal charges are ever brought I would say, "all the more reason to delete these obsolete and redundant but still chilling clauses".

Next month marks the 21st anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in the X case, interpreting Article 40.3.3° of the Constitution as permitting abortion where pregnancy poses a real and substantial risk to the life of a woman. Following the fourth expert group report on abortion in Ireland, Action on X welcomes the Government's decision to introduce legislation combined with regulation to implement the X case ruling. We welcome this decision as a necessary step required by the Constitution and also so as to ensure our compliance with the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the A, B and C v. Ireland case and with the European Convention on Human Rights. However, we are strongly opposed to any dilution of the already restrictive terms of the Supreme Court ruling in the X case and would emphasise that the new legislation must fully acknowledge that a risk of suicide due to unwanted pregnancy as determined by health professionals is grounds for abortion in Ireland. Action on X has been surprised of late by the readiness of some organisations to question or dismiss the Supreme Court ruling in X. Since when has it become acceptable in this country to dismiss, disregard or seek to tamper with the rulings of our Supreme Court or to ignore our duties and responsibilities under international law and human rights instruments?

Action on X is also of the view that legislation must make clear that preservation of the woman's life is prioritised in any clinical assessment on the need for a termination. It must acknowledge that while Article 40.3.3° requires that a risk to life be real and substantial, such risk to life does not have to be inevitable or immediate, as set out in the X case ruling. As regards implementing legislation quickly as a minimum basis for abortion law in this country, the framework for such legislation already exists in Deputy Clare Daly's Medical Treatment (Termination of Pregnancy in Case of Risk to Life of Pregnant Woman) Bill 2012. As such there is no excuse for further procrastination and beating about the bush in this regard.

In framing a law within the confines of Article 40.3.3°, we would ask legislators to acknowledge the real life truth that abortion is an every day fact of life for women in Ireland. More than 4,000 women and girls go every year to Britain and beyond for abortions. They do so because they cannot have an abortion here and for many different reasons. All of these women make valid and often difficult choices. Some choose abortion because to continue the pregnancy would damage their physical or mental health or, possibly, endanger or shorten their lives. Others do so because they have become pregnant following rape or incest or because of a lethal fatal abnormality. I regret the group, Terminations for Medical Reasons, was not invited to make a presentation to the joint committee.

Article 40.3.3° of the Constitution is the source of inequality of access to medical treatment between women and men, as noted by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, during the November 2012 debate on Deputy Clare Daly's Bill when he stated that legally, women are denied access to certain treatments such as abortion to protect their health whereas men face no legal denials to any treatment. This inequality is particularly acute for women who do not have the money or are too ill to travel abroad for an abortion. For these women, permanent damage to health or avoidable shortening of life may be the outcome. We believe this discrimination must end and call for an acceptance that risks to health are as equally valid grounds for abortion as are risks to the life of a woman, as recognised by the Labour Party in its pre-election promise of legislation is this domain. The blunt reality is that the restrictive terms of the X case ruling would exclude the large majority of women who leave Ireland for an abortion abroad. Action on X, therefore, calls for the repeal of the demonstrably unworkable Article 40.3.3° and for appropriate legislation to end inequality and meet women's actual needs.

Action on X supports the right of a woman to unfettered choice on whether to continue a pregnancy. We strenuously object to claims that the floodgates will open and that there will be an explosion of abortion in Ireland. We can predict with considerable accuracy that in the region of 4,000 to 5,000 women will seek abortions in Ireland annually. This would not be an explosion but consistent with our true abortion rate and comparable rates in many other countries. The difference would be that at last we would as a country be honest about the realities of women's reproductive lives, choices and needs. The change in culture feared by some previous contributors to these hearings has already taken place. During the past 30 years public opinion on abortion has changed profoundly. The RED C poll conducted at the end of 2012 revealed that more than 80% of the population now believe that abortion should be available to a woman where continuing a pregnancy would damage her health or would threaten her life and that 36% believe a woman should have the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy. It has also been revealed in polls that the authority of the Catholic Church has significantly declined, some would say plummeted, during this period. For example, The Irish Times Ipsos-MRBI poll of June 2012 indicates that only 34% of Catholics attend mass at least once a week while the Contemporary Catholic Perspective survey of February 2012 reveals that 75% of the respondents do not believe that the teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality are relevant to them or their families. Ireland is not only constitutionally but, it would appear, socially a manifestly secular democracy.

With these issues in mind, the public support for increased access to abortion for the women and girls who travel abroad for terminations for medical reasons to preserve their health or prolong their lives and the unequal access to medical treatments between women and men, the view of Action on X is that the new legislation must make access to abortion a real rather than theoretical right. I will finish with a quote from former President Mary Robinson following the Supreme Court ruling in the X case in 1992. When speaking about the deep crisis within ourselves she said: " I hope we have the courage, which we have not always had, to face up to and to look squarely and to say this is a problem we have got to resolve." Action on X shares the hope of former President Robinson.