Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Over the past few days we have indicated that some of us believe the Bill will not even achieve its stated intention, which is to protect women whose lives are at risk because of a physical threat or the threat of suicide. In the latter case, suicidal women will not go near this process because it is so restrictive and intrusive in its interrogation of women in a vulnerable position. It fails to bring clarity to cases where women's lives are threatened and how doctors should intervene in such cases. It has failed on that account, as we have pointed out.

Even beyond that argument, in many ways the debate we have had does not focus on the biggest element of the abortion debate, which is the thousands of women who are not in extreme cases but who travel to Britain for abortions because they feel their health is at risk, they have been victims of rape or sexual abuse, or they become pregnant as a result of incest. Some feel their welfare and well-being is threatened by having to continue a pregnancy they do not want.

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