Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that.

Again, very little attention was paid to mental health or to the fact that in Britain the vast majority of abortions take place on the mental health ground. However, we heard clearly in the committee that there is no evidence that can be adduced that abortion improves women's mental health. If anything, there may be a low to moderate risk of adverse mental health consequences for women in certain cases. I have always been careful to neither overstate nor understate that. How remarkable that the committee did not scratch its head and wonder whether that meant that talk of mental health grounds for abortion might be a denial of women's welfare or that there should be informed consent about possible risks to mental health associated with abortion in certain cases. That is a massive fact when one considers that most abortions in Britain take place on the mental health ground. We never talked about informed consent or anything like it.

Deputy Rabbitte raises a human concern in hoping that no woman in a vulnerable situation who had made the mistake of importing an abortion pill would be criminalised in the context of seeking medical help. Surely it would be possible to enact legislation that no person would be criminalised for seeking medical help consequent on their having undergone a procedure that was itself against the law. One can protect the unborn fully in the law and one can keep abortion against the law to protect women and children, but one can still ensure there is a legal guarantee that no woman, young or old, seeking medical help would ever be chilled out of doing that because the doctor would have to report in some way. Again, the committee was not interested in examining this. That does not point to the need to legalise abortion. It points to the need to ensure that women get medical help. They are always the vulnerable ones in the equation. It is the medics or those who provide abortions whom the law should always target. One could pass that type of legislation. It is one of the many things we never discussed because nobody was interested.

Incidentally, on the subject of trusting women, do I trust abusive boyfriends who might pressurise their pregnant girlfriends? I do not. That is why it is not just about the trick question of whether one trusts women. I trust women and men, but I also believe the law has a role in protecting people from things that might hurt themselves and others.

Finally, if anything I have said here, and I do not presume that it is the case, strikes the members of the committee as something they are either hearing for the first time or that this committee never really considered, I ask them sincerely to suspend their judgment on this issue until they have looked at these issues in the round. It would be too easy for members of the political parties, in particular, to find themselves locked in by a party whip or by their previous comments into supporting something on which, on closer analysis of the issues we did not discuss, they might be open to changing their minds. I address that to them quite sincerely as somebody who also tries to keep an open mind but has tried always to see that there are two lives to be protected.

Thank you, Chairman, for the leeway.