Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to elaborate on the issue of the lack of gestational limits. An extraordinary regime is proposed under which termination of pregnancy can take place right up to 39 weeks. At 39 weeks, there is a good chance the baby will be fine. Perhaps at 32 weeks that would also be the case but, as was pointed out earlier, the further one goes back to, say, 22 or 23 weeks, the greater the risk of permanent disability. Deputy Ó Cuív went into the risks involved at different stages of pregnancy. I suggested on Committee Stage that we should provide for a gestational limit in those circumstances but the Minister of State, Deputy White, and others stated we could not introduce them because it is a constitutional right and such rights cannot be limited.

That is one view but there are many other views. Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness suggested during the joint committee hearings that it would be wise for the Dáil to put a gestational limit on terminations. Professor Gerard Whyte of Trinity College Dublin law school stated: "The decision in X can have no application to cases in which the pregnancy is at such an advanced stage that it may be practicable to save both lives." To that extent, he considers the right to an abortion established in the X case to be a time limited one that expires once it is practicable to save the lives of both the mother and the foetus. If he is correct, then it would seem entirely appropriate for the Oireachtas, if it saw fit, to legislate for time limits, indicating at what point in the pregnancy it could be deemed practicable to save both lives. I do not know if this has been considered at all. The curt replies we got to this issue suggest that it has not been seriously considered.

On Committee Stage, I suggested that if it is the watertight legal advice - I do not accept it is because Professor Whyte's point is at least strongly arguable and is supported to a certain extent by Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness - then, at a minimum, an undertaking should be given before this legislation is commenced to hold a referendum along with the other referenda in October to provide for this. The public does not support a termination regime without gestational limits and which provides for termination of pregnancy right up to the 39th week. That is a serious flaw in this legislation.

With regard to what is proposed in section 9, the proponents of the Bill and even people who have serious difficulties with it say it will not make a difference and that the numbers will be tiny. However, the truth is we do not know because there is no clinical way of assessing a person's suicidal intent in cases where there is no underlying psychiatric illness. If a woman presents as suicidal by virtue of her pregnancy, there is no clinical way of establishing whether that is the case. I referred to my concerns that the default position may well be because of the lack of legal protection for doctors in those circumstances that the safer action for doctors may be to agree if the woman says she is suicidal. When we consider this in all honesty, we cannot ignore the experience in other jurisdictions where termination of pregnancy has been introduced on these grounds and what has happened in most cases in that regard.

I do not believe the Government is setting out to introduce a liberal abortion regime but because of the difficulty in a diagnosis of suicidal intent and because of the likely unintended consequences, there is a concern that under this legislation the rate of termination will increase significantly over time. The public does not want that to happen generally in these circumstances. It is important for that reason that the operation of this legislation is monitored clearly and that we have reports on how it is operating. The legislation, as drafted, provided for the Minister for Health to report on the notification he receives.

I did not believe the headings under which those notifications were to be reported were sufficient. If we are honest about this, if we want to be open about it and see what its impact is, we should be entitled to information about the grounds on which terminations have been granted. That is a breakdown between sections 7, 8 and 9. We should be entitled to know what was the outcome of those terminations for the woman concerned and for the unborn. I had suggested amendments along those lines. When I was going through the legislation and the amendments I was very concerned to see the Minister's amendment which very much weakens the reporting arrangements on the notifications he has received. Rather than giving a breakdown of where procedures have been carried on, under what sections, who carried them out, whether there were significant clusters and that kind of thing, the Minister is proposing to amend the legislation so as to weaken those reports. Again one would have to ask why this is happening. If the Minister believes what he says the impact of this legislation will be why would he not be open about such reporting? That is another flaw.

Overall, we should have a review of this legislation, giving people the benefit of the doubt. There are those on the Government side who say this legislation will not result in a significant increase in the number of terminations. If that is the case let us have full reports every year and a review of the legislation after, for example, three years. That is reasonable. Given that nobody can say for certain what will be the impact of this legislation, why not have a review after three years? Let us discuss it here openly and look at the impact it has had.

That the Government will not agree to that and is being much more circumspect in respect of reporting arrangements lead me to have serious concerns about this Bill. Overall, the principal flaw I see in the legislation is in respect of the lack of gestational limits. That provides for a regime which most people would find unacceptable. For that reason I cannot support the provisions of the legislation in that regard.

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