Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The proposer of the amendment started out by saying information is key, as if they were doing the women a big favour. What is being proposed is forcing any woman who is about to have an abortion to watch a DVD, get a description of the operation and of "the probable anatomical and physiological features of the foetus at the time the termination of the pregnancy is to be performed". I do not intend to keep coming into this debate, as I said yesterday, but I would like the proposers of this amendment to consider how cruel they sound to the public. We have all described to them situations of somebody having an abortion because of a fatal foetal abnormality. The proposers of this amendment want those women to sit and listen to a description of the features of the foetus. "The Handmaid's Tale" is on the television at the moment. We are only a breath away from it with the likes of this and references to foetal pain.

I do not know if it is normal for a man who is going in for a cancer operation to be sat down and shown a DVD of the operation, or have it described in detail by doctors. I do not think that is the case. I am pretty sure it is not. It seems to be only when women want to make up their own minds about what they want to do with their lives.

The abortion pill is mentioned and there is apparently a DVD that shows the woman how to reverse the effects of the abortion pill once she starts to take it. There may be doctors here who can answer that question but, from the studies that I have done of the abortion pill, I do not know what is meant by that. They are proposing an amendment to a Bill that has no medical or scientific basis. It gives the impression that the proposers do not have a clue what they are talking about.

I am particularly interested in this going back to the 1950s when women were pregnant and had to ring around to public and private agencies that might take the child from them. That is proposed in the amendment. That was a golden era in Ireland, apparently, from the point of view of the proposers of the amendment, when women were forced to have their children taken from them and given to public and private agencies. That worked really well.

The proposers seem to be living in a time warp where, according to this, a woman is a single woman who has made the decision to have an abortion because she is not being supported by the father, or he is forcing her to have the abortion and paying for it. It would be great if that was always the case. There are women who make up their own minds without the father of the foetus being the primary focus.

The proposers also do not seem to realise the extent of gender-based violence in this country. There are many women having abortions because the father of the foetus is violent. The proposers want them to be consulted and legally forced into their lives.