Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Some of those who have opposed this element of the Bill have used something of a red herring argument, namely, that termination can never be a cure for suicidal ideation. Nobody has ever claimed that. It is off the pitch in terms of being a relevant argument to what we are talking about. The Supreme Court made the correct decision; in the case of X, a 14-year-old girl who was raped and became suicidal, to force her to continue with her pregnancy could have represented a threat to her life. This was a real situation. The Supreme Court made a decision and we should not second-guess that.
As I have indicated, this section should go further. I mentioned that the conditions are too onerous in terms of the number of doctors and too prescriptive in that an obstetrician is required. It is too onerous to talk about a perinatal psychiatrist is because that is an extra prescription. Section 9 refers to "a psychiatrist who provides, or who has provided, mental health services to women in respect of pregnancy, childbirth or post-partum care." That is too prescriptive and onerous, and I believe that the presence of an obstetrician is unnecessary. We should apply the same standards that we apply to any other mental health situation, namely, by requiring the presence of one psychiatrist and a GP. There is no medical basis for distinguishing between a medical emergency and a psychiatric emergency. That advice comes from psychiatrists whom I have consulted. Psychiatrists have said there is no medical basis for making the distinction.

When we have debated issues with regard to mental health and suicide in the Dáil in other contexts Deputies across the political spectrum have made the point that we have to take mental health seriously, that there is a stigma, that there is different treatment for different people, and that an unfair distinction is made between mental health issues and other supposedly real medical issues. People in other contexts across the spectrum have said we should not make that distinction. Yet in this Bill we make that distinction. I do not think the Minister should be dismissive when I make that point because it is one being put forward not just by me but by many other people. Such a distinction does not exist in medicine and should not exist in this Bill.