Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will make a few brief points. The 1992 and 2002 referenda were defeated by both the pro-choice and pro-life campaigns and it is a brave person who will interpret the message of Ivana Bacik and Dana when they speak with one voice on an abortion campaign.

This legislation allows for the State to disable a child without any basis in medical evidence. It is difficult to say this, but a possible outcome is that a child could be damaged and forced to live with a severe disability for the rest of his or her life. This shocking vista would be a shocking legacy of this Dáil. We are told this is an extreme case that is unlikely ever to happen. We were told a number of years ago that we would have the cheapest bailout in history and that it would not cost the taxpayer tens of billions of euro. However, what we have learned is that if it can happen, it will happen and that human behaviour fills the spaces created by legislation.

It has been mentioned that thousands of women travel abroad for abortions every year. I see this as a double tragedy. It is a disaster for the women in crisis, but it is also a disaster for the lives lost. Ireland has an abortion rate of one in 20. In Britain, the abortion rate is one out of every five pregnancies. Clearly, our culture and legislation have created materially different outcomes for both women and children. Tonight, we are faced with the choice of whether to vote "Yes" or "No" on this issue. This is not the only binary issue with which we must deal. We either believe in medical evidence based treatment for women or we do not. We either believe a person is a human being or not and that child lives or dies. These are the stark and grave choices we are faced with tonight. The only yardstick we should use is what is the best available evidence based clinical practice in this regard.

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