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

I apologise that I had to leave the room for something. If I repeat something that was asked already, ignore me. I can look back at the record. Deputy Durkan touched on the rate of termination in the UK. I was sourcing some documents about the rate in the Netherlands which used to be the lowest but which has risen slightly in recent years. Dr. Lohr quoted a figure of 16 per 1,000 and I think the Netherlands stands at approximately 8.6 per 1,000. Some sources attribute that to Irish people travelling there. The Netherlands, like the UK, has quite a high number of Irish women who travel there for termination. As part of the continuing development of abortion services, has the UK done anything to try to reduce its rate? In Holland, they have a non-moralistic treatment of teenagers with education and access to contraception and so on. Can Dr. Lohr outline those things?

Ground E in the 1967 Act was quoted by Dr. Lohr who said it was for the case of a baby with a serious mental or physical disability? How is "serious" defined? On occasion, people here have thrown out the term "cleft palate", but from listening to the experts it is often a combination of conditions. It is not simply the case that a child has Down's syndrome.

It might be a child who has Down's syndrome coupled with kidney problems, a heart defect and so on. Perhaps the witness would elaborate on that issue. In regard to the limitations of the UK system around the abortion pill, why has nobody in the UK Parliament brought forward a measure to try to change that position? What are the barriers to it in a country that would be seen to have a liberal approach? Why has the United Kingdom as a country not done anything to date to address this issue?

Dr. Lohr referred in her opening statement to never turning anybody away. What does that mean? Does it mean that no woman is turned away when she makes contact by phone or when she lands on the doorstep? I am thinking in this regard about women who are being prevented from travel. Why in her view was the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, BPAS, set up to provide abortion services rather than this service being provided by the UK maternity hospitals under the National Health Service? The evidence suggests that reducing barriers to access to contraception tends to reduce abortion rates because of the reduction in unplanned pregnancies. As contraception is free in the UK, perhaps Dr. Lohr would elaborate on that point.