Ms Christina Zampas:

I answered that question earlier. I will not answer it again. Senator Mullen's other question about the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its preamble is a very important one, and the convention does a very good job of protecting prenatal interests. It says that the best way to protect prenatal interests is to make sure unwanted pregnancies decline and, therefore, that states should have comprehensive sexuality education programmes in and out of schools that are mandatory, evidence-based and age-appropriate throughout schooling, that all forms of contraception should be fully available and affordable to all women, that there should be strong safe motherhood programmes so women who are pregnant with wanted pregnancies can have safe and healthy pregnancies and that issues concerning, for example, spontaneous miscarriages are addressed. That is how the Committee on the Rights of the Child and many other human rights bodies have addressed the interests of prenatal life, not by calling for bans on abortion or protection of the unborn because we know that such measures do not reduce the number of abortions but only increase illegal abortions and force women to travel. The WHO is very clear that criminalisation of abortion does not lead to a decrease in the number of abortions. Ireland would be an exception among the world if its criminalisation of abortion did so.