John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Government's determination in bringing forward the Bill. That it took the death of Savita Halappanavar and the spotlight of the world's media to bring about action is a tragic shame, as has been acknowledged by very many in government.

I am afraid that the Bill has been divisive. It is truly a disgrace that such an important issue has been so starkly simplified as involving a dichotomy between the pro-life and pro-choice sides. If the debate should be pro-anything, it should be pro-women’s health and welfare. That is what was spoken about in the Supreme Court. In bringing forward the Bill the Government is attempting to legislate for a 21 year old Supreme Court ruling. I will be supporting the Bill. I would be loath to do anything to delay its passage. The unfortunate paradox is that, considering the 21 years it has taken for an Irish Government to get off the fence and finally legislate for the Supreme Court's ruling, the Government's response is minimal. It is dated and takes no responsibility for current concerns surrounding abortion, on which all opinion polls have been clearly decisive.

The Bill will provide no reassurance for the estimated 1,200 Irish women carrying a foetus with a fatal abnormality who must travel abroad for a termination every year. Neither will it offer any support to those women who are pregnant through incest or rape. Women who did not want to become pregnant face enormous consequences for their having been violated.

The number of sexual offences rose by almost 50% between 2007 and 2011 and by another 6.3% last year. It must be acknowledged that only a small percentage of rapes, for instance, are reported. Of the nearly 2,000 sex crimes committed in 2011, only one in six resulted in charges being brought. Financial support for domestic abuse services is being hacked away year on year. It is interesting that the Safe Ireland survey entitled, On Just One Day, showed that on 6 November last year 22 pregnant women sought help from domestic abuse charities. Campaigners believe the number of pregnant women who are being abused could be as high as one in eight. Despite this, instead of supporting women who become pregnant as a result of violence, the Bill carries the potential sentence of 14 years imprisonment for those who procure an abortion in this country. That is warped justice.

The Bill lends far too much credence to the suspicion clearly held by some Deputies to the effect that women may falsely claim to be suicidal in order to procure an abortion in this country. We have no idea how many pregnant women die by suicide. A pregnant woman faces the same risk of death by suicide as a non-pregnant woman. Many suicides are actually recorded as open deaths. Faced with the prospect of proving their state of mental health, many distressed women, I strongly suspect, will travel discreetly to the United Kingdom to have an abortion rather than subject themselves to the inquisitorial process the Bill prescribes for those wishing to avail of its provisions.

With regard to the possibility of false claims of suicidal ideation, there is no denying that desperate people do desperate things. If I were the parent of a 14 year old child pregnant as a result of rape who wanted to have an abortion, would I take her to the general practitioner and tell him or her my child was suicidal? I would if it meant she did not have to travel to another jurisdiction. Can we not think about this? At least 12 women travel outside the country every day for an abortion.

Anecdotal evidence suggests hundreds of women are using DIY abortion pills bought online, thereby risking excessive blood loss, womb infection, blood poisoning and even death. There has been a significant rise in the seizure of unregulated Internet ordered pills by the Customs service in recent years. There are many reasons women seek an abortion and we cannot continue to push these cases under the carpet and pretend they are not happening. The women concerned are asking to be heard, but they are being ignored.

I acknowledge and respect the closely held and widely varying views of Deputies on this issue. I will not be arrogant enough to demand that anyone should change his or her views, although I have been literally tormented by some of the pro-life crowd to change my views, in spite of the fact that I have told them consistently that I will not do so. What has happened to some Deputies who happened to be speaking about women who had been raped, who were carrying a child with a fatal foetal abnormality or who had been victimised has been well recorded. We have been called everything; we have been sent offensive, obscene literature, and people have come to our houses after midnight. The most offensive remarks have been made to us and even members of our families. How Christian is that? We live in a democracy and must allow people to act according to their conscience.

I call on the Government and all political parties to stop hiding behind the Whip system. Someone asked me whether the Whip would be applied if one were to make the death penalty mandatory. It would not be applied because the death penalty is absolute. How many horrendous mistakes have been made across the world in this regard? I accept that one cannot remove the Whip on the Government side; if it were, the country would not be governed at all. There has to be some order and discipline, but perhaps the Whip should have been removed on this issue.

It is a matter of showing compassion on both sides. I have met some people on the pro-life side who show no compassion when they say a woman who is raped and becomes pregnant should have to go through the pregnancy for nine months. Yesterday I met a group concerned about fatal foetal abnormalities.

Someone did say, I believe, that if the remains of the foetus were to live for one second, that would be it. What about the trauma women suffer, which affects some of them for the rest of their lives? Compassion must be shown.

With regard to commercial abortion, if a woman wanted an abortion after seven months, I would have to think about it. I would be open minded, but I am not absolute on everything. This is where the pro-life movement - I hate using the description "pro-life"; I am pro-life because I do not like to see a child die anywhere in the world - has lost the argument. The people are way ahead of all of us on this issue, as opinion poll after opinion poll has shown. Between 75% and 78% support the Government regarding this Bill, while 83% believe that if a woman is raped, forcibly impregnated and violated, she should be able to have an abortion and 87% say that abortion should be allowed in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. Why do we not listen? We are always quoting what the people want, and this is what they want. It is disappointing that provisions relating to rape and fatal foetal abnormality are not included in the Bill, but I have no hesitation in supporting it.

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