Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

We are coming very near to the end of this mammoth legislative debate. I will try to be concise because I know other Members wish to speak.

It is utterly unacceptable that we would criminalise women in this day and age where they have undergone a termination in the State in circumstances that are not permitted under current legislation. I remind the Minister and Ministers of State that they are criminalising women faced with fatal foetal abnormalities, suffering inevitable miscarriage, who are victims of rape and incest who might avail of a service in the State, and who determine, after a difficult consideration, that it is in their best interests to have a termination. Should any of these categories of women opt to have a termination in the State, they could, under this provision, be put in jail for 14 years. It really is appalling. We must remember that the State facilitated a referendum to allow safe passage out of the State for women in this predicament to have a termination in another jurisdiction. Allowing that situation to continue amounts to major hypocrisy.

Some of the women who have made that journey gave their testimony to the Government and other Members of the Oireachtas. They spoke about how they had felt alienated and traumatised as they left the State to undergo a medical procedure, at great expense, in another country. The Government does, in fact, recognise the problematic nature of this provision by way of the inclusion in section 22(3) of the condition that a prosecution for an offence under the section may be brought only by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is merely a safety net for the State, a way to save the Government's blushes in the event that a situation is stumbled upon where a woman would actually be prosecuted. If that were to happen, there would be outrage among ordinary, decent people in this society and great embarrassment to the Government, in the same way that the Government in 1992 was deeply embarrassed as a result of what had happened to the unfortunate victim in the X case. The provision has been included to try to alleviate such an eventuality or prevent it from happening.

The reality, of course, is that if we did not have the safety valve of the availability of safe terminations in Britain and if, instead, back-street abortions were taking place here, with the inevitable tragedies that would result, abortion would have been decriminalised long ago because the people would demand it be done. I hope the Government will accept the amendment to remove this barbaric criminalisation which should have no place in the legislation.

See this speech in context