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

No, the people of Ireland did not at any point express a desire for a 14 year prison sentence for women who procured abortions or for those who provided such a service. The only possible justification there could be for the criminalisation of abortion is, as Deputy Clare Daly mentioned, the practice of back street abortions. That is the only justification. However, that is not a justification because to perform an abortion on a woman without her consent would be a most serious criminal offence and a grievous assault, resulting in grievous bodily harm and God knows what else. It is already a crime. Similarly, it is a crime for somebody who is not a qualified medical practitioner to carry out an abortion. Therefore, there is no necessity to include this provision in the Bill.

The most obnoxious aspect of this provision is not even the chill factor which it will undoubtedly maintain for doctors in making decisions in the interests of women's health and lives. It will undoubtedly weigh on their minds that if they act outside these very unclear guidelines as to when, how and where they can intervene to protect a woman's life, they could be guilty of a criminal offence and subject to a penalty of 14 years in prison. That certainly will have a chilling effect. Setting aside even that, however, the most obnoxious aspect of this provision is the issue of stigma. The Minister knows what I am saying. Anybody who claims to be pro-choice and respects the fact that abortion is a valid choice for women in some or all circumstances knows that the question of stigma is a very serious consideration.

This provision very clearly says something to the thousands of women who travel to Britain every year for abortions. They do so for all sorts of reasons - because they have been raped, because they have a pregnancy which involves a fatal foetal abnormality, because they are facing inevitable miscarriage, because their health is threatened or because they feel they are too poor, too old or too sick to have a baby. This provision says to these women that what they are engaging in is a form of criminal activity and that the people who are providing them with the service are criminals. The Government is maintaining that stigma which is so damaging to the psychological welfare of women. As the Minister knows, one of the major points made by the women involved in Terminations for Medical Reasons when they made their presentations to Members of this House was how horrible it was, faced as they were with a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality during the course of a wanted pregnancy and having to travel to Britain for an abortion, to know, in addition, that what they were doing was considered criminal in the State. This provision maintains that aura and stigma of criminality around what they and other women have done and will do in the future.

I know the Minister does not believe for one minute that what women in that situation have done is criminal. In fact, I hope he does not believe for one minute that the thousands of women who travel every year to Britain are engaging in something that is criminal, yet the Bill says that to undergo that procedure in the State is a criminal act. The women who travel to Britain do not live in a parallel universe where they will have the procedure performed there, where it is not criminal and then come home without a full awareness that what they have done is deemed a criminal offence in this jurisdiction for which they could face a prison sentence of 14 years.

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