Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service released figures estimating that one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. It is regrettable to see no women politicians on the other side of the House. Let us suppose this figure is true. I call on the Minister to think of the number of male Government politicians whose wives, partners, daughters, sisters, aunts and even mistresses have had abortions through travelling abroad safely over the course of the lifetime of Ireland's abortion ban. The figure must be sizeable. Of course we are glad those women had the ability to travel, but they should not have had to travel. They should have been able to have it in this country. It is a sickening hypocrisy that these same politicians continue to stand over Ireland's medieval abortion ban, especially when migrant, poor and sick women are being denied the right to have an abortion.

A total of 26 migrant women went for counselling to the Irish Family Planning Association in the past year and sought abortions, but they were denied the right to them. Five were forced to continue their pregnancies against their wishes. There is only one term for that, that is, barbaric. It is barbaric to force a woman to carry a pregnancy that she really does not want, not to mention the impact it will have on those children as well.

Is there any shame or embarrassment in this Government about this situation? Poor women, people with disabilities, victims of domestic violence and women in State care are being denied abortions in this country. The Government likes to market Ireland as a modern country and a great place to do business and so on. However, the following countries have more liberal abortion laws than Ireland: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tunisia, Zambia and South Africa, which, by the way, when it liberalised abortion, halved the number of deaths associated with abortion. Even Burkina Faso, the poorest country on the planet, allows abortion where a woman's life or health is at risk as well as in cases of rape or incest.

In India and Pakistan, a country that everyone believes is very backward, and even in Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive cars, women are allowed to have abortions when their health is at risk. That is where the Government is placing Ireland with its continuing hypocrisy and the maintenance of the ban on abortion.

While there are very pressing issues in this country facing ordinary people, including working-class people, such as the housing crisis, water charges and the ongoing austerity onslaught people have faced in the past six years, the continuing existence of the eighth amendment is equally pressing for women in this country. In the past two weeks alone in my constituency and that of the Minister, I have been approached by women in absolute desperation. They are women who have children already but who just cannot afford to have any more. Therefore, there are many working-class women who must find €1,500 to try to travel to Britain or elsewhere to avail of an abortion. They cannot wait any longer for the eighth amendment to be repealed. Some 160,000 of them have had to travel.

On the last day of the Dáil session in July, the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, said the Government would not revisit this issue and that the people have spoken. What people have spoken? Nobody from this generation spoke on this issue. This generation never got a say on the matter. The Tánaiste stood against the eighth amendment in 1983 but she is choosing to ignore it 31 years later. She built her reputation on women's rights.

The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, said today he knows the law will not be the same in 20 years. What is he saying, therefore? Is he saying women should sit tight and wait until he finds an opportune moment to allow them to avail of what is a human right? They cannot wait 20 years, another generation, for the Minister to do what he knows is right.

When the Minister last spoke on this matter, he said we should not bring the Catholic Church into this. It is only the Catholic Church that argued and lobbied for this amendment in 1983. No other church argued for it. It is a sectarian amendment in that respect. Now the Catholic Church does not have the hold it had in 1983 but the Minister is continuing to give it inordinate power through its control of health and education. The mantra from the Government is that it will not revisit this issue as there is no appetite for it but there is actually an appetite. Successive polls have shown a majority of people favour a repeal of the eighth amendment in the lifetime of this Government. Only 10% opposed abortion in any circumstances in the last significant poll that was carried out. The Government is legislating for the 10%. I ask the Minister to recognise that the politicians in here are way behind ordinary people. I have noted that at the ROSA stalls when talking to people. They are eager to bring this country into a progressive place, break the stranglehold of the Catholic Church and send a message to that effect.

I ask the Minister to note the trend in Spain, where a conservative Government similar to that of the Minister's party, Fine Gael, tried to withdraw freedoms that women had in terms of the abortion laws but it had to backtrack spectacularly. In 20 cities, ordinary people came out onto the streets to demand maintenance of the liberal abortion law in Spain.

It is very disappointing that the Labour Party is not here tonight. I ask the party whether it will continue to support the legacy of a Catholic Church-influenced State, the kind of State that led to the Magdalen laundries, the mother-and-baby homes, symphysiotomy, the controlling of women's bodies and the denial of their health care and rights. I call on the Labour Party to support this Bill and the repeal of the eighth amendment, and to hold a referendum at the time it should be held, that is, with the other referendums in May, as announced today. How could a decrease in the presidential voting age be more important than this issue? It is absolutely an insult to women to bring people out to vote on a range of issues and not put this to the people also.

Consider the news that 26 migrant women were effectively incarcerated in this country and denied a right to abortion. I call on the agencies that are counselling and advising these women and others not to be put in the invidious position of seeing these women suffer in the way Ms Y did. I ask them to give these poor women the information they need. They should give them the information that Women on Web is a resource available to them and that they can access safe abortion pills – pills just like those I have to hand, Mifipristone and Misoprostol, which induce miscarriages safely and which are used all over the world but not allowed to be used here. Why did that girl have to suffer? She could have been directed to use these pills, which are available through Women on Web for €90, a fraction of the cost of an abortion. These are on the list of WHO essential medicines. They are very safe and there is no reason they should not be available. I ask the Government to make them available and to hold a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. There should be no more hypocrisy and no more denial. The Minister said himself that the law will be gone in 20 years. We should not wait 20 years; the Government should do something right for a change.

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