Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both witnesses for coming in to speak to us today. For me, the focus of this committee is on the dignity of women. We are also focusing on unborn life or the unborn children. Do both witnesses think that the eighth amendment afforded them and their unborn children, now their children who have passed, any dignity?

There is a thing when someone is expecting a child - maybe I am wrong on this - that once it gets to 12 weeks, there is a feeling that it is all grand. Obviously we all know now that is not the case. However, we think that what happened to the witnesses will not happen to ourselves, that those things happen to other people. I do not think there is any greater pain, although I know it is hard to quantify pain. We heard earlier from a psychiatrist about the hormones in the brain affecting the body and all that, which explained a lot to me, but it is a complicated grief, as has been said. There really is a sense of abandonment and almost a guilt - as though somehow the woman is nearly to blame for the situation because she is the carrier of the child.

As the man in the situation, I would like to ask how Mr. Edwards felt. My own story is documented. My husband was probably more affected than I was at the time. How did Mr. Edwards feel in that moment when decisions had to be made? How did he feel about a vulnerable pregnant woman who, I suppose, he would have liked to take care of and mind?