Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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It seems to me that so much of what the programme does is determined by the witnesses' understanding of what non-judgmentalism and non-directiveness actually require. Let me put it this way: we operate within a constitutional framework where the unborn baby is another person to be protected by Irish law, the second human being involved in the equation. In other areas of our culture, we have very good, proactive and State-funded activity designed to discourage behaviours that might be harmful to individuals themselves or to a third party. I am thinking about anti-drink and anti-smoking campaigns, drink-driving, and, increasingly, anti-obesity. These campaigns are publicly funded. One would not so much describe them as directive and judgmental because they do not judge the people and nor do they require or coerce certain kinds of behaviour, but they do clearly encourage or indeed discourage certain behaviours.

I do not expect Ms Donlon to comment on the anomaly, because that would bring her into the realm of policy, but it seems anomalous that, on the one hand, we can encourage certain kinds of behaviours for the sake of protecting an individual, or a third party in the case of drinking and driving and so on, but that when it comes to the protection of the unborn and how that intersects with Ms Donlon's work, it seems to me that the positive options notion sums up her activity, which is to say that as long as the information is procured, supplied and accurately provided when requested, Ms Donlon's job is done. Is this because the programme sees itself as being curbed by legislation that there is not something more proactive done given our constitutional position, which one would understand ought to tend the State towards protecting the unborn? I am asking about things like recommending adoption or requiring that State-funded agencies propose or speak positively of adoption as an alternative.

I am also talking about things like informed consent. We had a hearing last week in which it was not effectively accepted but it was certainly not contradicted, that there is no evidence linking abortion with increased mental health outcomes, yet mental health is what is on the Statute Book in Britain and it is what has opened up a large number of abortions. Mental health was also cited by the Irish Family Planning Association, IFPA, here earlier. Does the HSE crisis pregnancy programme require, as a matter of informed consent, that counsellors draw a woman's attention to the possibility that if she had, for example, a previous mental health history she might be at risk of adverse mental health sequelae in the context of abortion? This is no more and no less than the precise truth.

Take the question of ultrasound. I am not asking Ms Donlon whether it ought to be required that a woman see an ultrasound, but ought it be required of counsellors that they offer that in a respectful way and in a way that always respects a woman's right to refuse, but also in a way that allows the provision and sharing of full information, all of which might act to encourage the life-giving choice at the end of the day? Does Ms Donlon see that as outside of her mandate? Would it require a change of law in her view for public policy to go down that road in the light of what the eighth amendment currently states as a matter of public policy?