Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I refer to amendment No. 60, the amendment we tabled in this grouping. It takes up the issue of the classification of "an unborn human life" and substitutes "a pregnancy". It tries to take out the worst elements of this Bill in terms of handling the situation of a woman, because that is what it should be about. The points have been made. This should be about the protection of the life of a woman who needs a termination of pregnancy in difficult circumstances.

I understand that many - it has been quite indicative - do not want termination on demand except in certain cases, such as rape and incest. It is terrible that we must discuss this in the Dáil Chamber and degrade women to the point at which we are classified so that we can seek a termination only in certain circumstances, but this Bill, in essence, makes the present position worse. There were cases in which children in care, aged 15, with one psychiatrist, were allowed to travel to Britain to access a termination. By law, under the Supreme Court judgment, they should have been able to access that termination here. From now on, they will be subjected to a panel of three medical practitioners, one of whom will be an obstetrician. This is outrageous. The European Court of Human Rights specifically made the point, in the A, B and C v. Ireland case, the D case and the X case, that there should be accessible legislation to enable terminations in those circumstances. This Bill is going in the wrong direction. That is the reason we are trying at this late stage to deal with the worst aspects of it, put in better terminology and change the nature of the Bill to make it more accessible for women who have crisis pregnancies that they cannot deal with. They need support from this State, not the British, Norwegian or French state, to deal with what is facing them in this country.

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