Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have to say that I never imagined when I stood for election to the Dáil for the second time in 2011 that I would find myself here two years later speaking on a Government sponsored Bill to liberalise abortion law in Ireland. I am in no doubt by now that this legislation will pass, notwithstanding the many reservations expressed both privately and publicly by colleagues from all parties and in the face of grave reservations expressed by expert psychiatrists in two separate sessions of hearings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children. I can only hope that logic and verifiable evidence will prevail and substantive amendments will be accepted to ensure the rights of all human beings are protected with the full rigour of the law.

I have never regarded myself as a pro-life campaigner. I was not motivated to become active in politics because of the abortion issue. In fact, I have spoken previously about the fact that I had a very different view on this topic when I was a student. However, after much reflection, my views have evolved over the years as I learned more about the topic, as I came into contact with friends and family affected by abortion and as I matured and developed my own independent analysis of this most sensitive topic. Crucially for me, I stepped outside the groupthink which dominates this debate in Ireland. It seems that if one does not succumb to the accepted view that abortion is a liberal issue, a women's rights issue and a cornerstone of the progressive agenda, then one is deemed to be a backward, illiberal, Neanderthalfundamentalist who belongs to a different era. The distinct irony of this prevailing view is that it is so illiberal in its intolerance of any alternative outlook.

Of course I respect the right of people to campaign for liberal access to abortion. Many of them do not consider abortion to be the intentional ending of human life, and so they simply see it as a medical procedure which can simply be regarded as a clear-cut choice. I can appreciate this way of thinking because I used to think that way myself. Carried along with the accepted, supposedly progressive, view on abortion, I never considered the other life involved. Given the huge stress and trauma that surrounds abortion, we know that this medical procedure analogy is a sterile yet dangerous inaccuracy. I think the majority of us know and appreciate that an unborn baby is just that: it is a baby. If such a baby is born prematurely, we do not simply shrug our shoulders and say this baby has not come to full term, it is merely a foetus and we will not treat it; of course not. We do everything possible within the bounds of medical science to save that baby's life. We know that baby cannot live independently outside the womb but that is not a cause to give up on it. This is human life, after all, and we must save it.

Some say this is a women's issue, that it is about women's rights. Therefore, if one is pro-life, one is obviously anti-women. Yet when one steps back from the stifling groupthink and reflects, I think one arrives at a different view. I am a woman and I am very happy to say I am also very much in favour of women's rights, by which I mean all women, not just adults, adolescents or children. I mean babies too. The sad reality, as we look around the globe at how women's rights are advocated, promoted and defended, is that it is clear to me that abortion is, in fact, often a tool for the oppression of women.

We can consider what happens in China, India, Korea and some parts of Europe and the United States of America. The societal preference for boys over girls has led to the obliteration of tens of millions of baby girls who were simply never "born".

A famous feature carried by the Economistmagazine in 2010 indicated just how females are discriminated against in this age of abortion. One paragraph from that edition jumped out and frightened me. It states:

Until the 1980s people in poor countries could do little about this preference: before birth, nature took its course. But in that decade, ultrasound scanning and other methods of detecting the sex of a child before birth began to make their appearance. These technologies changed everything. Doctors in India started advertising ultrasound scans with the slogan “Pay 5,000 rupees today and save 50,000 rupees tomorrow” (the saving was on the cost of a daughter's dowry). Parents who wanted a son but baulked at killing baby daughters chose abortion in their millions.

It would be bizarre if we, as legislators, and I hope as thinkers, did not ask the obvious question of what is the net difference between such screening, followed by intentional gender-based abortion, and the intentional killing of the baby after delivery. The answer is none. The net effect is exactly the same, which is to say that an innocent baby is simply wiped out. The scale of this exercise is such that in China, by the year 2020, there will be 30 million to 40 million fewer women than men walking the Earth, growing up, having families, going to work and generally contributing to their society. Having 30 million to 40 million fewer women is hardly a triumph for feminism or liberalism.

The horror of abortion is also to be seen close to home and the phenomenon of designer babies is one element that horrifies me most. This year we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Special Olympics coming to Ireland, and that was an extraordinary occasion which saw children and adults with intellectual disabilities - particularly Down's syndrome - celebrated in this country like never before. In a sense it marked the end of marginalisation and the beginning of new era, when people with special needs were finally embraced and celebrated as they should be.

Many people might not like this juxtaposition of these two issues but I believe in facing reality. In the United States - a country that initially introduced abortion in extremely limited circumstances - the use of prenatal screening is today absolutely prolific and increasingly acceptable in society. There are many studies charting disturbing trends but one by Professor James FX Egan of the University of Connecticut indicated that of the 122,519 Down's syndrome babies expected to be born between 1989 and 2006, only 65,492 were born; almost 50% of those babies were simply obliterated because they were not "perfect", whatever that means. That is genuinely terrifying and shocking all at once, and it again shows that this question of abortion is not a liberal issue. It is far from it, and in a liberal society, we celebrate life in all its imperfect manifestations.

See this speech in context