Ms Maeve Taylor:

As we have said, we were in a certain context in 2018. At that time there was only knowledge of abortion provision in cases or risk to life. The only legal framework available was the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act. I agree with the Senator that the Act and the debates around it and its enactment were really important in the process of reform. Prior to the Act, no legislative effect had ever been given to the X case. We had the eighth amendment and a Supreme Court case. There was no legislation, regulations or anything in guidance that clarified for healthcare practitioners what they should do in those cases. For that reason, the IFPA supported three women to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights, namely, the A, B and C case. The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was enacted as part of the process to give effect to the ruling in the A, B and C case to give legislative clarity to the X case. That was a requirement, as members know, of the A, B and C case. However, once that Act was passed and in operation, a completely different conversation about abortion in Ireland happened because it liberated healthcare providers to talk about what that provision was like and really name the barriers.

It was in the process of discussion of the A, B and C case and of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act that healthcare providers came before the Oireachtas and later the citizens' assembly and talked about the difficulties of working in an environment where the law was in the consultation between a woman and her doctor and the bright line between life and health, the policing of that by healthcare professionals, the ethical and clinical difficulties that brought about and then the impact on women of denial of care. That was thrashed out after the enactment of the legislation, and, in the context of the enactment, in a way we had not seen before. This was because there was clinical knowledge and it was much more in the open. We had doctors coming before the joint committee in 2017 giving evidence about what it was like and what the Act's impact on the operation of services was. That is the position we are in again, whereas in 2018, during the referendum campaign, a general scheme was produced that March that was very much modelled on the structure of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act but allowing for abortion in much wider circumstances. That was published before the extent of public support for repeal of the eighth amendment was known.

Following on from that, as lawmakers, Members of the Oireachtas have a responsibility to learn from the evidence of the impact of the law on the operation of services. From the evidence, it is very clear it does. Once Dr. Conlon's report and the other piece of research into the experience of providers are published, as well as the evidence presented to the committee today through various submissions and when the committee hears more from hospital doctors and GPs, especially in rural areas, the evidence will shows that the operation of services is negatively impacted by over-restriction in the law. There is too much law in the law. The gestation limit acts to exclude women who need abortion care from a necessary health service and forces them into exile. That is something people very explicitly voted against in 2018. That is very much what was in most people's minds when they were voting. There is a responsibility on legislators to learn from the evidence and be confident in the evidence that will be presented in the review but to take responsibility for changing the law if the law is frustrating access and frustrating what people voted for.