John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I concur with the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, that some Members hold the suspicion that women may falsely claim to be suicidal. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts have not been able to determine why someone is suicidal and why they take their own lives. The Bill is deeply restrictive and offensive to women in this sense, although I am obliged to vote for it. For instance, certification under the Mental Health Act requires two doctors, but this legislation will force pregnant women to see three. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett is correct that all this will do is force women, faced with the prospect of proving their state of mental health, to leave the country. We will continue to export the problem out of Ireland.

There are women who are brutalised and raped, even in their own homes, or in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities who may feel suicidal. Those opposed to this section are telling them they are not suicidal. What a cheek for any Member to consider saying this to a woman? To put it simplistically, if a woman, as a result of rape, says she is suicidal, that should be it for all us, as legislators, to believe and trust her. I have met women who have been brutalised and raped who have had to go through giving birth, as well as others whose child had a fatal foetal abnormality. Every one of them would say they would not have chosen to have had an abortion because of the love of their husband or partner. This was not their choice, but there was an inevitability about it in that their own lives would have been destroyed which might have led to suicide. That is why we have to think about what is in a woman’s head if she has been raped, brutalised or carrying a foetus incompatible with life. Compassionately we must accept that there is a prospect in the woman’s mind that she may be suicidal. That is why we should support the Bill.

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