Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 22 of the Bill states that it is an offence for a woman to "intentionally destroy unborn human life", an offence for which she will be liable to imprisonment for "a term not exceeding 14 years". If the Bill is not amended in this regard, there are serious implications for women seeking an abortion for any reason other than the avoidance of an immediate threat to their life. It will be perfectly lawful for those women to travel outside the State and have an abortion for medical or social reasons. It will be perfectly lawful for clinics outside the State to give them all the information they need on how and where to have that abortion. However, if a woman has an abortion on this side of the Irish Sea, she is liable to imprisonment for up to 14 years. The crime that merits this sentence is not having an abortion but having it in the wrong place.

The State, through the Health Service Executive, currently offers post-abortion medical and support services in locations throughout the country. These services provide what is described as non-judgmental follow-up treatment for women who have had abortions. What will happen if a woman, having taken an abortion pill she ordered online and now experiencing complications, seeks medical treatment or is rushed to hospital haemorrhaging? Under the proposed legislation, if she reveals what she has done, the hospital surely cannot be expected to be non-judgmental in the face of what the Oireachtas is defining as an appalling crime. It is fundamentally wrong that a woman in that situation would face imprisonment for up to 14 years.

An estimated 4,200 women travel from the Republic to Britain and other European countries each year to end a pregnancy. For most of them, this Bill will not permit them to have the procedure in their own country. More could have been achieved in this legislation. I do, however, recognise its importance and, as such, I will be supporting it.

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