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

Because of the position under the eighth amendment and so on, the Government has banned these pills from the country. Who are the women who are looking for them? They are our sisters, cousins, friends and neighbours. They are ordinary women who have been driven to desperation because of a crisis pregnancy. If the Government is banning abortion in this country, will the Minister of State at least let the women concerned access these pills via the Internet and take their chances? What is happening is that doctors have to sit in surgeries, hand-holding, and tell women that they will help them afterwards if there is a problem. I remind the Minister of State that until the 1980s, contraception was illegal in this country. I remember that time when people had to sneak around back streets looking for family planning clinics. I also remind her that vasectomies were illegal. Doctors had to perform them illegally in order to challenge the law. I also remind her that homosexuality was illegal. These are laws that we now look back on and call disgraceful. In a few years time we will look back on this policy and say it was a disgrace.

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