Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have discussed different issues regarding the possible termination of pregnancies and the Minister has argued it is not possible to deal with them owing to constitutional difficulties. However, this was an area he could have addressed. With this new legislation, there was no reason he should have left this draconian law in place. Current criminal law does not deter women from resorting to the importation of medication which may be used incorrectly and without medical supervision or a prescription for antibiotics, as is the protocol when this medication is used in countries where it is lawful. The law does, however, deter some women in such circumstances from seeking medical advice where post-abortion complications arise. Delay in seeking medical advice may result in a risk to women's health or, in certain circumstances, her life.

In addition, criminalising abortion shifts the burden of realising the right to health away from the State and onto pregnant women. Those women who travel to the United Kingdom for terminations, for all reasons, report significant physical, financial and psychological hardship and a sense of shame, isolation and stigma when they seek health services abroad that are criminalised in Ireland. Criminalising abortion stigmatises and isolates women and denies them appropriate, accessible and affordable health services. It results in a lack of consistency and accountability in the delivery of health care services, a lack of training and skills development for doctors, a lack of continuity of care for women and significant constraints on the ability of doctors to act in their patient's best interests.

Criminalisation of abortion in Ireland imposes financial, psychological and physical hardship on women. It acts as a form of discrimination and intersects with other forms of discrimination to further disadvantage vulnerable and marginalised women. The women and girls who experience most difficulty are those who are already marginalised and disadvantaged such as those with little or no income; women with care responsibilities; women with disabilities; women with a mental illness; women experiencing violence; young women; migrant women; and women asylum seekers. In the Irish context, the criminalisation of abortion gives rise to particular concerns because abortion is only lawful to save a woman's life as distinct from her health. No other country in Europe makes the distinction made in Irish law, permitting abortion to save a woman's life but not to preserve her health. The distinction is clinically virtually impossible to make, but the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill requires doctors to make it. This, in effect, requires them to wait for a clinical case to deteriorate until the risk to health becomes life-threatening. In the process, a woman's life may well be endangered or lost.

In the context of a fear of criminal prosecution, therefore, medical service providers are effectively prevented from exercising clinical discretion in their patient's best interests and applying best clinical practice and intervening when a serious health risk presents. The idea that we are fine with 4,000 women a year travelling to England to have an abortion but are not fine with their getting a pill in the post to deal with the same issue is strange. It appears to be okay for them to get on a boat and get the pill in England and take it before they get back on the boat or the Ryanair flight. Is that fair and practical? Is it rational? Will the Minister try to justify why the Government has not dealt with this draconian provision in this new Bill? I find it difficult to believe the Minister believes it is a good idea that a woman who takes an abortion pill she buys on the Internet could spend up to 14 years in jail for doing so. Will he explain to me how he thinks this could possibly be right?

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