Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 6, line 14, to delete “means a female person of any age” and substitute “means a person of any age who can become pregnant”.

The purpose of the amendment is to make the language inclusive and to future-proof it. It is clear that members of the LGBT community were very much part of the referendum campaign. They were our allies and I do not want to be seen to abandon people at this point in the proceedings. We have to be alert to the realities of the people who are going to use the service. I do not hold with some of the other amendments that go through the Bill line by line and propose amending every single reference. However, I support the concept of one all-encompassing amendment that makes it clear that when we say "woman", we mean any person that can be pregnant. We will have the debate but we are going back to the issue of inclusive language. To be modern and forward thinking, we need to be in a position to use language that is as inclusive as we can make it.