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

My anger at the failure of this State to vindicate the rights of women over a period of 20 years or more has really risen in recent days. That failure has emboldened so-called pro-life advocates to once again argue about the lives, rights and bodies of women. This is the spectacle we have witnessed in recent days. They are arguing as to whether suicidal feelings represent a real threat to a woman's life, about when the threat to a woman's health becomes a threat to her life and what are the best interests of a woman who has been raped, is the victim of incest or has become pregnant with a child with genetic abnormalities. Those discussions are both obnoxious and medieval in nature. Some Deputies on the opposite side of the House have stated that we must discuss the intricacies of these matters. We do not need to do so because it is not possible to make definitive adjudications on psychological matters, on when a threat to a woman's health becomes a threat to her life, on whether suicidal feelings may lead someone to commit suicide or on when the continuation of a pregnancy represents a real and substantial threat to the life of a woman. The fact that any of these things might come to pass should be sufficient to ensure that the women involved would have the right to terminate their pregnancies. The only way to proceed is to allow women to decide.

Savita Halappanavar should have been allowed to have an abortion because she asked to have one. That is the right we need to uphold and vindicate. In fairness to the Minister, he accepted this and indicated that the current legal and constitutional framework means that even if we legislate for women who are pregnant with children with genetic abnormalities, who are the victims of rape or who find themselves in the other circumstances to which I refer, their rights would not be vindicated. That is medieval. If those in government are serious about this matter and if they really mean what they say when they make statements such as that, then they should indicate that they are going to bring forward legislation to repeal the eighth amendment to the Constitution. They should also clearly state that a referendum will be held in order to remove these medieval restrictions on women.

I saw a post on Facebook yesterday in which someone said they had discovered the meaning of the word feminism, namely, that women are human beings. We need to establish women's rights in this regard. The Government - if it means what it says - can commit to holding the referendum to which I refer. In the interim, however, emergency legislation is needed in order to cater for the judgment handed down in the X case. The argument that the Bill before the House is not perfect is not an adequate reason to vote it down. Neither is the argument that we have not had adequate time to consider it and the matters relating to it. If the Government really believes the latter, then it should offer to make time available for us to continue the debate on the Bill next week. If the Government indicates that we can use its time to engage in a non-guillotined debate on the Bill - this would give those opposite and everyone else in the House an opportunity to frame the amendments necessary to refine it - then we will not push the matter to a vote.

The Bill was put forward in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy which we never want to see repeated and in order to expedite matters in respect of this issue. Doctors should never again be expected to operate in a position of legal uncertainty with regard to when they can act in the interest of saving a woman's life. I wish to put an offer to the Government, namely, that it should extend the debate on the Bill into next week, at which point it can put forward its own amendments. If it does not do this, then it appears that the Government is not serious about this matter and is again guilty of facilitating the type of delays that have marked the past 20 years.

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