Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is no denying the prevalence of terminations in Irish society today. Many hundreds of thousands of women in the country have travelled to the United Kingdom and elsewhere to have a termination carried out. There is also no denying that there is still a lot of fear and secrecy around travelling for and returning from a termination. I would not be even slightly dismissive or blase about the medical complications which can occur with a termination.

Numerous complications have been dealt with by doctors and hospitals here when women have returned from the United Kingdom, but regrettably some women do not go straight to the doctor when they suffer complications because of the fear they could be considered criminals and rejected by society. We need to get rid of this attitude in society. We must be very compassionate towards women who have had a termination and must assure them that they will always receive the optimum care from our doctors and hospitals and that nobody will ring the Garda the minute they turn up in accident and emergency units and say they have had a termination.

We must be careful not to be casual about the drug the Deputy mentioned, RU486. This is not a drug that should be taken casually as it can lead to catastrophic bleeding. If such bleeding was to occur outside of a medical facility, where the patient could not get medical care quickly, this could destroy that person's life or quality of life.

In the context of this discussion on termination, I do not believe Irish society is ready for any variation of abortion on demand. There is no doubt there is strong public support in the case of foetal abnormalities, incest and rape, but I do not believe the support is strong enough to ensure that if we had a referendum next spring that it would succeed. Given the inflammatory language used in debates on this emotional issue, I believe we would lose any referendum on this issue. The Deputy may shake her head, but that is my opinion. If such a referendum was defeated, because of being badly thought out, poorly put together and poor quality debate, this would serve no purpose for the women concerned. For that reason, I support the Minister's position that when dealing with a highly emotional issue - we saw how emotional the issue is last summer - we must be careful in how we approach this debate.

I believe we should stay away from the type of language that has been used on this issue suggesting it is somehow an issue of rich versus poor. Those types of sound-bytes are already being used in this Chamber and this is being set up as an issue of whether people have money or not. This is a hugely emotional issue and if we want to win the argument with the public, we must make it a women's health issue and an issue of what women want. We must stay away from the emotional type language that boxes people into corners of being pro-life or pro-choice, forgetting the people in the middle who want to be rational and reasonable on this issue.

I have seen this happen. I saw how Deputies were bullied into one position or another when we discussed legislation here just over a year ago. The same sort of thing will happen again unless we approach the issue in a cool, calm and compassionate way. We should not confuse the issues. What happened to Savita Halappanavar in University Hospital Galway was tragic, but it had nothing to do with our abortion laws. Deputies should read the reports rather than blind themselves to what happened. It was a shocking event where a young woman developed sepsis when having a miscarriage and lost her life. The accusation may well be made that there was a delay in treatment, but that had nothing to do with our abortion laws.

We must move forward on this issue. We will move on by talking about the issues, such as about foetal abnormalities, incest and rape, because there is consensus on those issues, not just between political parties and politicians, but within the public. However, I do not see the consensus the Deputy believes exists for a type of abortion on demand. I do not believe Deputy Daly is calling for abortion on demand, but for some liberal variation of our abortion law. However, I do not believe we have support for that at this point in time.

I would support a referendum on this issue. I am a pro-life legislator, but I do not feel the need to deny the placing of pro-choice legislation on our Statute Book. I know we are not in the right space now to put this type of referendum to the people because no matter how well we word it or put it together or what consensus we reach in regard to who it should provide for, our debate would break down into the same tribal debate we have seen so often when this issue has been discussed over the past 50 years.

We have a long road to travel to reach consensus on this issue in this House before we go to the people. The Deputy has her view and the issue is easy for her because in her mind her view is absolutely right and she does not countenance any other. However, other people in this House who are members of political parties would have to bring their political parties with them before we could bring this legislation to the people. Within those political parties, there are Deputies with difficulties. It is only when we have reached consensus here and have managed to bring everybody in this Chamber together that we will manage to bring forward this legislation.

The Deputy is right that we are usually way behind the curve when it comes to what the general public thinks or will accept, but we go to the trouble of thinking out these issues. This one is very important. The day will come when a referendum on this issue will be put to the people. I hope that when this happens, individuals or political parties do not see it as a niche opportunity for them to use the issue to seek political favour for themselves. This would be to the detriment of the women Deputy Daly speaks about here representing.

The time will come for a referendum. I do not know when it will take place, but it is a lot closer than 20 years away. However, the debate on the where and when and how soon we can have a referendum depends on how we as politicians and members of political parties handle the issue in the meantime. I was not filled with encouragement when I saw how the pre-legislative hearings were handled in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children that it will happen in the foreseeable future. However, if we approach the matter in the right way and engage with the wider society, which is further along than us, it might drag us along rather than the other way around.

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