Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No one yet knows for sure what happened to Savita Halappanavar. We know that she wanted to be pregnant, that she miscarried and that the care she received did not save her life. It is important to push for medical accountability in such cases and to demand full investigations into whether protocols existed and were followed and whether the patient was subjected to discriminatory harassment and remarks, as has been alleged.

We need not wait for the investigation to highlight what we know about abortion in Ireland. The Government has yet to regulate access to life-saving abortions despite the fact that such medical interventions have been legal in this country for two decades. The legality of an abortion where the pregnant woman's life is in danger was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1992 and supported by a referendum in the same year. While abortion generally is criminalised in Ireland, women whose lives are threatened by their pregnancies are constitutionally entitled to have abortions.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights berated the Government for not regulating access to life-saving abortions clearly, thereby creating insecurity for medical providers and patients alike. Many medical providers want clarity on when they can intervene and when they cannot. How does the Government propose to treat a woman who may or may not die as a result of her pregnancy? Should it tell her to return when she is sure she will die? How will she know and what if it is too late? Who would be responsible for such preventable deaths?

In recent weeks, we have heard time and again about the pain and fear that pregnant women face when something is clearly wrong with their pregnancies and they cannot receive care near home. Abortion is a medical intervention to which women need access, some to save their lives. This is not an opinion - it is a fact, as evidenced by the thousands of women who travel from Ireland to the UK or mainland Europe to terminate pregnancies every year. Knowing this, why do we keep postponing doing the right thing?

Twelve women travel from Ireland to the UK each day to access abortion services. They are from all walks of life and each has her own reasons for deciding to have an abortion. Women's experiences of abortion are diverse and complex and the decision to have one is not taken lightly. Women's reasons for choosing abortion, such as financial worries, concerns about the well-being of other children, diagnoses of serious foetal abnormalities, pre-existing health problems, including mental health problems, and relationship issues, can be stressful. The stress involved in making the decision is exacerbated by needing to travel to another country to access abortion services, by the expense involved, by feelings of fear, stigma and secrecy, by a sense of isolation and by a lack of support. For these women, the need to travel abroad involves unnecessary hardships and, in many cases, significant psychological, physical and financial burdens. The women and girls who experience the most difficulty are those who are marginalised and disadvantaged, namely, those with little or no incomes, those with care responsibilities, those with disabilities, those with mental illnesses, those experiencing violence, those who are young and those of uncertain residency status.

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