Ms Liz McDermott:

Very sick babies or babies with a substantial abnormality are nevertheless babies, they have a life to live, and they are alive when they are being talked about. In so far as abortion being a solution to a life that, again I have tried to say that not being able to deal with the eventual outcome is not something that can be predicted, and any woman in any kind of crisis pregnancy will feel frightened and will feel that she cannot cope. That is how I felt. I am not painting myself as any particularly strong member of society. I felt I could not cope. I often crumbled and was found in a puddle of tears in the corner of a room. My daughter was probably largely abandoned during that time.

That is why I think the answer to that dilemma is the provision of proper supports. At the time a diagnosis is given, right there and then there should be a pathway of care that is immediately activated for women and their families to support them and which does not describe their babies as anomalies or fatally ill. They are their babies, they have been pregnant, they have carried their babies, they have a bond and a relationship with them already and then suddenly all this information is coming at them kind of to turn away from that. I can understand why women feel that way and that abortion is the only way out and the only way that they are going to cope. However, that is the challenge for us as a country and I think it is one that people increasingly are coming to recognise, that we have to provide proper, meaningful and sustained antenatal support which women should not have to go looking for. That is how I would deal with that. It cannot be predicted in advance that women are going to be able to cope with it or not.