Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The debate is resuming from one week ago. I came to the Chamber and listened to most of the contributions. It is important we get this right as a people and as a society. Sometimes, events can occur that give a disproportionate sense of emergency about something that requires reflective consideration.

Our Constitution holds the life of all citizens, from the start of life, in equal value and equal regard. Understandably and rightly, when a woman becomes pregnant and is expecting to become a mother, if her health is impaired and in danger of existence, the situation that has been upheld is that the medical team attending to the woman will do everything in its professional competence to save the woman's life. If, as a sad side effect, a baby is lost, that is one of those hard, sad facts of life. Since the determination of the X case by the Supreme Court, the delivery of medical services and medical care to the women of this country and any women visiting from abroad is as excellent as humanly possible.

As a human race, we are made up of the complementarity of two genders, male and female. Bringing life into existence requires that balance. We are all the sons or daughters of mothers. We may be the fathers of daughters and the brothers or sisters of brothers and sisters. We are a family. The context of supporting the equivalence of life of everybody, whether conceived and yet to be born or living life through to natural death, means we must as a society continue to have the constitutional framework and the application of the values of the framework in conducting our lives.

Hard cases, such as those considered in the courts, do not necessarily make good law. The law is like a map or a road system for life. Sometimes, to have the principles of conduct within society to determine what is valuable and important to uphold for the citizens of the country can be best delivered with a framework of principles rather than the exactitude, or rigidity, of a law.

There have been difficulties with regard to certain cases and those cases are being referred back to the Constitution where there may not be any certain answers, now or ever.

There are people whose vocation and professional lives are dedicated to delivering the services that look after women, not just in childbirth and pregnancy but in general. There are also paediatricians who look after children and other doctors who look after patients of both sexes. The Supreme Court delivered its judgment and particularised a situation where there was a danger to the life of a woman as a result of the threat of her suicide. It could be, given some of the valuable and expert opinions of the medical profession, that the Supreme Court, with its good intention, stepped outside its competency to particularise a condition in which someone was psychiatrically unwell, and that this posed a real or substantial threat to the life. In recent days, some experienced and wise psychiatrists have questioned the wisdom of expressly mentioning a particular condition that might be a real or substantive threat to the life of a pregnant woman. To legislation for such situations, therefore, might not be wise.

The expert group comprised 14 people, including four lawyers. I am not sure of the ages of the members of the expert group. It is interesting to know that we change our views with experience of life and further evaluation of our lives and our family life. An interesting case in this regard is that of the late Anthony Clare, who was a professor of psychiatry and well known to most people here, in England and throughout the world with his wife he had six children. He had a brilliant academic mind. In the passage of time, his views on the situations in which the termination of the life of an unborn baby might be admissible changed. He moved from what could loosely be described as - and I hate these terms - a pro-choice view of the world to what could loosely be termed a more pro-life view. He was short-lived because he got cancer and died in his early sixties. It took the passage of time, the consideration of more than just the narrow spectrum of a legal or technical debate and the understanding of life through living it to come to that view.

This national assembly of legislators should be careful, and we are being careful. People will say it took 20 years to get to where we are.

The answer to that is that it is better that we make the right decision and create the right framework of principles for the lives of the citizens of the State, trusting the professionals who have delivered one of the world's service in looking after pregnant women and the delivery of babies to date, trusting them to have the values and principles we have articulated to deliver that service. We are not sure if there were any grandmothers were on the expert group or how many were parents.

A life once it begins has required two people to create it, a co-responsibility of the men and women of this country. We should take our time and not rush to legislate or regulate and we must make sure first principles are correct.

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