Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I find it utterly incredible that anyone could have suggested - as have a number of Deputies - that this Bill is premature. It appears incredible that 20 years have passed since the X case. I first became active in politics about that issue around that time and my views on the issue were not then formed. I did not really know what I thought but when the X case emerged, my views became very clear. This was because the X case demonstrated the utterly inhuman situation that pertained in this State, whereby a 14-year old girl who had suffered the heinous crime of rape could be criminalised for seeking to terminate that pregnancy. Moreover, at a time when her mental health meant there was a real and substantial threat of suicide, the State sought to criminalise her and her family for seeking to terminate the pregnancy. All the abstract and moralistic discussions surrounding this issue were cleared away and the human reality of crisis pregnancy, particularly in cases in which there was a threat to a woman's life - in this case a teenage girl's life - made it clear for people in this country that at the very least, which is all this Bill proposes, in the case of a threat to a woman's life, she should be given the right to make that decision herself and this State should support her and provide for her in making that decision. Could anything be simpler or more straightforward than that in the case of a threat to a woman's life, her decision and her right to choose should be upheld? It is simply extraordinary that in the 20 years since that decision was confirmed in referendum by the people, Governments have been too cowardly to implement the will of the people and to introduce some degree of humanity when it comes to a threat to a woman's life when faced with a crisis pregnancy.

I pay tribute to Deputies Clare Daly, Joan Collins and Mick Wallace and all the other activists who worked on putting together the Bill. I also pay tribute to the four women who came to Leinster House yesterday to highlight the tragic human reality of what it is like to become pregnant and discover that the foetus has an abnormality which is incompatible with life. This is a terrible and tragic situation for parents to find themselves in and I have personal experience of it because my former partner and I had a daughter who was born with a genetic abnormality which was incompatible with life. The type of situation to which I refer is an awful one for anybody to experience. In such a situation who, other than the mother, has the right to make the choice about what should be done? Who else would claim that right? People state they have their own views on this matter and they are welcome to them, but how could we do other than give to women who find themselves in the type of situation to which I refer the right to make decisions on their own behalf? To do anything else would be inhuman. That to which I refer is all that is being requested in the Bill.

Women are being forced to travel overseas at huge cost and to the massive detriment of their psychological and physical health and well-being to access the relevant services. Some women who are suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases are being obliged to travel by boat to alien places with which they are not familiar and in which they have no access to support. The financial cost involved for them is huge. What is being done is absolutely inhuman.

Many Labour Party Deputies built their political careers on championing the right to choose. They also spent many years demanding that legislation be introduced to deal with the judgment handed down in the X case. However, they are now playing politics with this issue and kicking the can down the road such that thousands more women who will find themselves in the terrible and tragic circumstances to which I refer will be obliged to sneak off in the dead of night and travel across the sea. It is not easy for women to cope with situations of this kind and it is not right that they are being denied support for their choices by the authorities in the State.

I appeal to those in the Labour Party not to play politics with the legislation or make excuses about its proceeding further. If they agree with the spirit of the legislation - I cannot understand how they could do anything else, particularly as they have for many years been saying what we on this side are now saying - they should allow it to pass Second Stage. If it requires amendment and further development, they should allow this to happen on Committee Stage. They should not kick the can down the road or sweep this issue under the carpet again. If they do, thousands of Irish women will continue to suffer and be treated as criminals and with inhumanity by the State. I appeal to Labour Party Deputies to support the Bill and encourage their colleagues in government to do so also.

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