Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have questions for the experts on three areas under head 4. Has the Irish College of Psychiatrists given significant consideration to the way in which the health grounds for abortion in other jurisdictions have been abused, particularly by pro-choice physicians, to permit abortion on wider grounds? In the United Kingdom, for instance, some medical practitioners have flouted the law by pre-signing abortion consent forms. Should the proposed law be more cognisant of the real possibility that abortion safeguards will be flouted, especially by those who consider that such safeguards limit the expression of abortion rights?

If the experts formed the opinion that a patient who was 20 weeks pregnant was suicidal and this constituted a real and substantial risk to her life which could only be averted by the termination of her pregnancy, would they feel obliged, under the proposed legislation, to try to delay the termination for a number of weeks until the baby was viable or should the law in this case explicitly provide for such an obligation? Are the experts familiar with what occurred in the State of California before the United States Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that abortions could be performed for a variety of reasons, including to preserve the mental health of a pregnant woman, and only if a hospital committee consisting of two or, in some cases, three physicians unanimously agreed that the pregnant woman was suffering from a mental illness to such an extent that she was dangerous to herself or to the person or property of others or was in need of supervision or restraint? The standard was essentially the same standard as that used for civil commitment. It is highly relevant, despite this highly restrictive exception made in 1970, that more than 65,000 abortions were approved by hospital committees and almost 63,000 abortions were performed. Clearly, physicians who believed in the right to abortion manipulated the inherent subjectivity of the mental health ground for abortion to make abortion more accessible. On what possible basis can we be assured that, over time, this psychiatric exception in head 4 will not be similarly abused? Should the safeguards in the draft Bill not be strengthened to counter against such abuse?