Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank both of the witnesses for their presentations. I found them absolutely full of facts and with a broad and detailed setting of the health framework relating to terminations in the Netherlands.

Before I ask my questions I wish to correct one aspect. The previous speaker, Senator Mullen, has given the impression that we know the numbers of terminations from Ireland. In fact we do not. The reason we do not is because while we have a figure for the number of women who register in Britain - which is around 3,500 - that figure does not include the number of women who take abortion pills. Estimates vary on this number but it seems to be some 1,500 women. The total figure also gives no account of the women who do not give their true address. A number of women do this and they have a good reason to do this; if they give a UK address they may be able to access treatments without having to pay. To be frank, we do not know the abortion figures for Ireland. We do know that thousands of women travel each year. I just wanted to correct that point.

The first thing that struck me is that there is a very ethical framework in place in the Netherlands. Will the witnesses explain to the committee how abortion health care is viewed by the Dutch population as a whole? How are women considered in all of this?