Mr. Gerry Edwards:

Parents and families who have been affected by a diagnosis of a severe anomaly have been generally quite under-represented so far. Many of them are quite understandably anxious about speaking out as publicly as we are. They have seen how some of us have been treated publicly and they are naturally concerned that they will be vilified. Some have said they would be stoned if they spoke because they feel that is how much society would judge them for the decisions that they make.

It is really important when we look at this that we put the pregnant woman in the centre. There is a woman, a real person, there who was trying to have a baby and was trying to bring another member into her family, whether it was a first or a subsequent, and she got this news. A lot needs to work right for us all to be born, and sometimes nature is cruel and things just do not work out or develop that way.

The consultants have spoken about the high proportion of miscarriages that are attributable to foetal anomaly. Obviously, there are other contributing factors there. Sometimes we do not miscarry. Sometimes it carries on but the baby is severely compromised.

Women have spoken to me about the rest of their family. They have spoken to me about their other children. Sometimes they have other children who have severe conditions, which are taking up all of their time and energy and for which they are reliant on charity. They are carers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are trying to have a normal family existence with their other children.

They know how difficult life is for themselves, their families and for other children. They find that in trying to have more children, they sometimes have to face this again. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution. We all have our own family units and challenges in life. It is no easy task to try to cope in these circumstances. A woman is going to make a decision based on her immediate family and other environmental factors, such as whether she has family support, enough money, how she is coping with her life, if she has underlying physical or mental health conditions, her age, and whether the baby she is expecting is going to have serious quality of life issues that will not, however, necessarily shorten his or her life. The woman has the question of what happens when she can no longer care for this dependent child as an adult. Will she have to ask her other children to do that? Will she have to depend on the State to do that? That woman will have to look at and ask those questions. The Constitution is not a factor there. Women are not saying that the law says that they have to continue with pregnancies and therefore must. The law, as it stands, just interferes with women accessing the care that they may choose to take that is in the best interests of them, their family and the baby. It is their parenting decision to make.

If the committee wants to create a situation in which more women will choose to continue with their pregnancies, then it needs to provide a better environment for them to do that. There need to be better social supports, carers need to be better treated and there need to be better facilities for people with additional needs. If money and skilled people are no object and there is a utopia, there will still be people who choose to terminate a pregnancy and the Oireachtas will still have a responsibility to support them in that decision. We certainly should not need to try to bring other families out into the open to explain their personal circumstances for the committee to imagine that scenario. Anyone who has been pregnant or who has contemplated having a family knows that, going through pregnancy, anything can go wrong. We are all afraid of getting bad results and I think most of us can understand that people sometimes have to make very difficult decisions and need to be supported in that. I think it is a wider societal issue, and just saying what the law is and that there is a medical service that we are not prepared to provide benevolently is not a solution for the issue nor is it against it. The issue is wider than that.