Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

When Deputies start to talk here about legal definitions and about whether the evidence was available at the time, they should remember that they are talking about a woman who is pregnant and that pregnancy could be a threat to her life. I have said to Deputy Clare Daly on another occasion that we should start to look seriously at the issue of fatal foetal abnormality and the threat to the health of the mother because some pregnancies can have an enduring effect on the health of a mother, as well as being a danger to her life. I advise Deputies that they should forgo talk of legal concepts in the abstract. They should think very carefully about whom they are talking because it is not some distant ethereal being; they are talking about mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters. Women, in the main, do not want to end their pregnancies, whether that happens by way of a miscarriage or it having to happen through a medical procedure.

This is not something stepped into lightly, and I have never heard any of them say it is something they chose willingly. We must be very careful about that, and it is deeply insulting to women to think we have people telling us that somehow or other, we are not to be trusted. If that were true, none of us would be sitting here tonight. Women are to be trusted and have always had the best interest of their children at heart down through generations. The notion that control must continue because, somehow or other, we are not to be trusted, is ridiculous. We have heard about legal concepts and angels on the head of the pin, with people wondering if a judge said this or that, but in between all of this, the woman and her baby are getting lost. This is about the protection of life in pregnancy.

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