Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The conversation on this amendment has included a reference to the belief that abortion is the ending of a human life and that people will be forced to facilitate the ending of a life. We have come back to the use of inflammatory language. Perhaps that is the view, but it is not really the place we are in right now. Previously, people spoke about reasons or offering clarity in reference to these amendments. The Minister has been very clear. The amendment is completely unnecessary and already provided for. As a registered pharmacist, I concur with the Minister's reading of the Bill to the effect that pharmacists have always been allowed to conscientiously object. During the years I personally have had concerns about the idea that anybody in receipt of State payments has had that option, but that is my personal view.

Some years ago I had experience in a town where there was a pharmacist who was a known conscientious objector and did not stock barrier or oral contraceptives and refused to stock Cytotec, that is, misoprostol, for the completion of a miscarriage. My understanding is there was no active referral. However, it was very well known among girls in the town that one did not go to that pharmacy for the contraceptive pill because one would not be given it. Happily, there were nine other pharmacies in the town that could facilitate. There is something like 1,800 retail pharmacies in Ireland and I do not imagine this will pose any problem. However, I do not mean to womansplain anything here, but as the Minister said, one of pharmacist's roles in the community is to complete stock orders for GP surgeries. As such, a dispensing process will be involved. In the hospital environment the pharmacy will dispense for prescribing doctors.

I was not going to go there, but there was also a reference to New Zealand. It is really easy to selectively pluck elements of other countries' legislation and bamboozle committee members as if we would not look it up, but I did. Under the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, in New Zealand abortion is available on health grounds up to 20 weeks; therefore, the risks of delay are not as great as under the Bill here. What happens in New Zealand is not at all relevant to the situation here. A doctor in New Zealand can refuse to consider a woman but must inform her of her right to seek healthcare elsewhere. The comparison with New Zealand, therefore, just does not work. It has been statistically proved - it is not merely my opinion - that terminations in New Zealand tend to happen later in the first trimester owing to that longer period.

Let us remember that at the start of the week we spoke about women being at the centre of our discussions. We have to imagine a woman with a crisis pregnancy who is looking for a medical professional's help and how she might feel if she was shown the door. I am of the understanding one can conscientiously object to treatment but not to a person. That is a very important point to consider.

The discussion has proceeded as though conscientious objection is a black and white issue. There is actually a spectrum. Suggesting an institution could be a conscientious objector represents a complete misunderstanding of the degree of objection within the medical profession. Let us consider an institution such as a hospital that is in receipt of State funding. It would be bizarre if it could organise as a collective so as not to provide services for which the people clearly voted.

To my mind, we are yet again seeing a sinister strategy to stigmatise the care required, that is, the procedure of termination of pregnancy; to demean and reduce a woman by suggesting she needs more information; to target the medical professionals who want to be conscientious providers of this service; and to drive willing medical professionals to simply give up.

As somebody who has worked in late night pharmacies at weekends and on Christmas Day for several years, I would like to make a point that the Minister has perhaps considered. There is a need for a book of guidelines for community pharmacists to cover situations where a patient, whom one knows, presents on Christmas day or at 8 p.m. If we cannot get hold of a GP, pharmacists should know the cascade of options to which we refer if we are caught in a situation with a vulnerable woman. Obviously, referring her to a maternity hospital seems to be the logical choice, but that is fine for me as a person in Dublin. A booklet would be helpful for those pharmacists who want to hold it. I am not saying they should be forced to hold them, but there should be some guidelines for community pharmacists in order that we will not be gazing at women in a crisis not knowing what to do with them.