John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending and for the report. I have a position on abortion that makes everyone maximally unhappy.

While it may not have been hijacked, the debate is being driven by people at the two extremes, and a logical, considered, temperate, thoughtful, scientifically informed and unsentimental middle ground has not been allowed to develop. The position that a two-cell, four-cell, eight-cell, 16-cell or 32-cell foetus, or a foetus a month or two old, with no working brain and no consciousness, movement or any of the characteristics that make a person a person, is a person with the same and equal rights as the mother who is its host is not logical. It may be a good basis for a theological definition of when life begins and for an individual's personal morality, but it is not a good basis for public law or policy. However, currently, it is the basis for the public policy we have, which is effectively that from the moment of conception, a two-cell or eight-cell foetus - although this has been interpreted by the courts as being only at the time of implantation, which can occur very quickly and with very few cells - assumes the full individual rights of a citizen. This is not logical, and as a society we do not behave as if we believe that. Even people who have an anti-abortion or pro-life position do not behave as if they believe that. Otherwise, why, if we know that ten or 12 women are committing murder by travelling to England, would we not put police road blocks in place at all our airports and ports to stop them from travelling for abortions? Why are we not carrying out mandatory pregnancy tests? If in any other situation ten, 12 or 14 murders a day were taking place, people would be up in arms about it. It is quite obvious that we do not believe this. We believe that whatever abortion is, it is something different. Therefore, if for no other reason than that, the case for repealing the eighth amendment is very strong.

As somebody who frequently has to make life-and-death decisions and have discussions with patients and their families about the level of intervention they would like in the event they become incapacitated or their prognosis becomes poor, I am very conscious that in general people are very comfortable with regard to doctors making decisions on when life ends. This is historically true in jurisdictions all around the world. However, they have not been as comfortable with allowing us decide when life begins. Part of this problem is that this is our fault as a profession, because there has been a fair deal of moral cowardice. People have brought their own pro-life and pro-choice prejudices into the debate with them and do not want to appear to be disloyal to their own intellectual or philosophical base by taking a position which may be at some variance with it. For this reason, the part of my position which makes me unpopular with pro-choice people, having already burned my bridges with the pro-life people, is that while I believe it is absurd, medieval and theological to assume that a two-cell organism is a person, I also believe it is absurd, medieval and unbelievably inhumane to think that a 22-, 24- or 26-week-old foetus, which can move, has a nervous system and must be anaesthetised before it can be dismembered in the course of a late-term abortion, is not a human. The ultimate logic of the pro-choice position, a viewpoint I have heard articulated, is "It is my body and I can do whatever I want with it at any time, up to and including 40 weeks." If there is a campaign to repeal the eighth amendment, I will support it, because I believe it is a bad amendment that ties the hands of legislators. In the highly likely event that I am still in Parliament at that stage, I may well support some other kind of replacement legislation, which will make me massively unpopular with many other people.

I have a question for the three witnesses. As representatives of Amnesty International, a premier human rights organisation, when do they believe a foetus becomes a person who should enjoy the protection of Amnesty International? At what stage do they think should Amnesty become involved? Would Amnesty International ever go into a country where abortions are legal at 34 or 36 weeks, where children can be removed from the womb and after they have moved and made noise be allowed to die on a table? Would they ever think it is their job, as part of Amnesty International, to defend their rights? I would like to hear Amnesty International's position on this, because I need to inform how I will think about this in the future.