Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be a very good boy and be very quick. Why should a woman's life be artificially prolonged, for want of a different expression, to facilitate the development of a foetus? Would it not be obvious to most people regardless of the law that it was an abuse of the system? Why should it take place? How has this taken place?

In respect of a baby who dies prematurely before the normal gestational period, what is this thing we have come across from time to time where the woman has to wait until the normal gestational period has passed before the baby is born even when the baby has been dead for maybe six or seven weeks or two months? Does that still continue or has it been discontinued?