Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 October 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution

Risks to Health, Including Physical Health, of Pregnant Women: Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, Dr. Peter Boylan and Dr. Meabh Ní Bhuinneáin

1:40 pm

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent)
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I have a final question for Professor Arulkumaran. The professor evokes a situation where Ireland is dangerous, despite the fact that we have not had any criminal prosecution of doctors and despite the fact that we do not have a history of mothers losing their lives because of the lack of abortion in Ireland. The professor's own report into the Savita Halappanavar affair did not claim that. The doctors involved in that case did not claim that it was down to the law in Ireland but that it was down to mismanagement of a situation. Has Professor Arulkumaran ever referred to or commented on - by contrast - findings made by the Care Quality Commission in England? For example, in its spot checks on the Marie Stopes clinics, which is an abortion provider in the UK, the commission found as recently as five months ago that some 400 botched abortions had been done in a two-month period. Has the professor ever commented on the problems with the provision of abortion in England and the adverse health effects for women, leaving aside the fatal effects for the unborn?