Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I was fascinated by what Mr. Thompson had to say about seeking to distinguish between those children with Down's syndrome with normal hearts, as he put it, and those with abnormal hearts. May I tell him something about children with Down's syndrome and their hearts as we experience it in Ireland? Children with Down's syndrome generally have very big hearts. There are thousands and thousands of people in Ireland who will tell Mr. Thompson about the love those children have brought into their lives. They would tell him about how unexpected the outcome was in many cases and about how what seemed like a disaster when receiving the news turned out to be a situation which brought untold love into the house. They would tell him how, far from causing mental health difficulties, the situation brought out the best in people as they had to discover and develop their caring sides. I remember a conversation I had with one very senior politician, who is still serving. He said that the child in his family who had Down's syndrome was the only one who really saw them all as equal and did not care about any of their achievements. The child did not compare any of them with one other and just loved them all the same.

Does Mr. Thompson accept that thousands of people in Ireland, who are listening to these proceedings or who will hear about his words in the coming days, will be chilled to the marrow? Does he accept that there are people who see that there are two lives to be cherished and protected in these situations? Does he accept that there are those who would be horrified by the way Mr. Thompson talks about the paralysing of the child, or the foetus to use the clinical term, that he carries out as part of the foeticide procedure, or the way he suggests that the odd story of babies with cleft lips being aborted is something we should disregard, as though abortion on such a trivial ground was just a small thing to be disregarded, a mere medical detail? Does he accept that he has an entirely different world view on this issue, perhaps from that of thousands of people in his own country but certainly from that of those who see two lives to be protected? Perhaps the fact that he cannot even estimate the number of abortions he has carried out highlights that point.