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

I have several amendments in this grouping. There are many qualifications in the Bill which essentially embed mistrust in the clinical judgment and good faith of doctors. These are an unnecessary misplaced concession to those who are opposed to abortion in any circumstance in what should be a trust in doctors. To use a term the Minister used frequently on Committee State, these changes are entirely superfluous and there is no need for them. They are simply a concession to certain people who want to hold back and frustrate the purpose of this legislation which is to allow for a pregnancy to be terminated where there is a threat to the life of the woman. The term “in good faith” implies that if a doctor acted in any other way, other than in good faith, he or she would be struck off. They have to act in good faith; that is their professional obligation. Why does it need to be included in the Bill? It is a form of organised distrust embedded in the Bill to assuage a certain side in this debate. That is why our amendments propose to delete this unnecessary term.

The Minister’s amendments are significant and, clearly, are to deal with a political problem, not with the substantive issue the Bill is supposed to be dealing with, namely, to allow for terminations where women's lives are at risk. In the original draft of the Bill the definition of “reasonable opinion” made reference to that opinion having to have due regard to the need to preserve the unborn human life as far as practicable as required by the Constitution. The Minister has deleted that reference and included it in the key sections which deal with granting women the right that they should have, namely, to have pregnancies terminated when their lives are threatened. This is not needed and it is gratuitous to insert it there. Worse than this, it is likely to lead to greater hesitation on the part of doctors where, instead of simply making the judgment that a woman’s life is at risk, they must look over their shoulder to qualify that assessment in case it infringes on the rights of the unborn human life when that right is already clearly established. That is dangerous for women and it is a political concession on the part of the Minister. If it is not, will he explain why he has put it in when it is already included in the earlier definitions and already established, constitutionally and legally? Why did it need to be taken out of the definitions section and inserted in the individual sections, if it was not a political concession which could have damaging consequences for protecting the lives of women?

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