Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

On the one hand, I very much welcome the fact we are here again discussing this issue but on the other hand, it really reflects very poorly on this House that all we do is talk about it. In fact, there has been no action whatsoever in any meaningful sense on this issue. I recognise that over the course of the five or six debates we have had on this issue in the lifetime of the Government, there has been a seismic shift in the attitude of many of the representatives across the entire political spectrum and I sincerely welcome that. It is a good step forward but sadly it is not good enough and it is not quick enough because there is a huge gulf between the reality on the ground and the sentiments and actual policy on display.

The previous time we discussed the issue the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, said, as he said today, that as a doctor he considers the eight amendment to be too restrictive. He explained the circumstances where it has no regard for the long-term health of a woman in terms of conditions such as stroke and heart attack, among others. What he did not say at the time was that he knew then that another initial was being added to the list of women whose identities have been hidden as a result of the fact they have been a tragic victim of the eight amendment - the case of PP, the woman who was clinically dead but being kept alive on life support because she was pregnant. The Minister talked during that debate about the eight amendment exercising a chilling effect on doctors and that legal considerations were replacing what should be medical decisions. He was absolutely correct in that statement but he then concluded that the Government should not rush matters in the spring and that what we needed was a careful and considered debate. Here we are in the spring and the Government has made no provision whatsoever for any debate, not to mention a considered or a careful one. Not rushing something is not the same as doing nothing which, in reality, is what the Minister has done. In some ways, what he has done is worse than nothing because the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act failed to do what it said it would do. It does not give pregnant, suicidal women access to a legal abortion in Ireland, to which they are lawfully entitled. We know that is the case because of the tragic case of Miss Y.

The situation continues to criminalise abortion and it resulted in a UN committee stating last August that it has a severe concern about the restrictive circumstances in which women have abortions due to Article 40.3.3° and the strict interpretation that exists in Ireland. It talked about criminalising the activity, the lack of legal clarity, excess scrutiny for doctors and interference with the medical profession, discrimination against those who cannot afford to travel and the fact that our laws add to the mental suffering of our female citizens. The committee required us to revise our legislation, including the Constitution, to take account of circumstances where women require an abortion in circumstances of rape, incest, health and fatal foetal abnormalities. That is a position which is roundly supported by the overwhelming majority in successive opinion polls. It is also the case that failure to do that would be in breach of Articles 2, 3, 6, 7, 17 and 19 of the European Convention on Human Rights and yet we talk about rushing the issue. The point has been made that not a single person of reproductive age had a say in the original eight amendment. The Government has been four years in office and it has failed to address the issue.

I agree with the points that have been made that this should not be a political football or an exercise in political point scoring. The reality is that nobody across the political spectrum has acquitted himself or herself very well on this topic. There is an incredible irony in the fact that Labour Party Deputies, who when times were hard, went out and campaigned against the original eight amendment and got vitriolic abuse at the time but when in power, they fail to address the issue. They then come into House and say we must wait for another Labour Party Government before there is any hope of getting it. That is an absolutely ludicrous position. I welcome the fact all of the parties have moved on the issue. This is the first time the Socialist Party has positively tabled an issue on abortion. I welcome that move, as I welcome the move by Sinn Féin and all of the other issues as well. Everybody has moved on this issue but the problem is our lack of action in dealing with the matter has resulted in an enormous gulf on the ground.

Let us look at the eight amendment and why it was introduced. Abortion was already illegal in 1983. It was introduced because the Catholic establishment wanted to be sure to be sure that there would never be abortion in Ireland. Its abysmal failure should be reason enough for why it should now be repealed, because the eight amendment did not stop Irish abortions - it just stopped them happening in Ireland. We have exported 160,000 mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and girlfriends to have that procedure done in a different country. To add insult to injury, our Constitution gives us a legal right to an abortion but it just says that we have to have it outside of our waters. The only people then who cannot have it are people who are too poor, too sick or of precarious immigrant status. The eight amendment stands as a monument to our hypocrisy. That is all it is. It is an unbroken thread to the Magdalen laundries, symphysiotomy and other such practices.

The truth is that the annual rate of abortion worldwide is roughly similar everywhere. There is no link between the number of women who end up having abortion and whether it is legal or not. The only thing that changes is their access to safe abortion, with the result that probably during the course of this debate, worldwide, 12 women will have died as a result of unsafe abortions. I have heard our lack of abortion provision being described as medieval. The reality is that in medieval times, we had the Black Death and high mortality rates and people did not give a toss whether women had abortions or not. It has been established by anthropologists that abortion has been a worldwide phenomenon and as long as men and women have had sex, women have attempted to deal with their pregnancies. While surgical abortions were rare until the end of the 19th century, evidence of pharmaceutically-induced abortions were commonplace in Egyptian and Babylonian times and even in rural areas that were untouched by modern medicine. Abortions have always been practised. What changed is that during the 19th century it became criminalised and that was part of a campaign against growing women’s rights and autonomy. It was a backlash against the suffragist movement, voluntary motherhood and the other struggle for women’s rights in that regard. That is the context in which this restriction came about.

The only way out of it is to have a system, which I obviously support, where we would have in this country free, safe, legal abortion as part of our health service for any woman who wants it, whatever the reason, as part of our overall reproductive rights, which includes the right to have a child and the right to raise that child with dignity and support. It is a fundamental human rights and health issue. The question is how we get there. We would have got there already if we did not have the safety valve of Britain to deal with all of the cases. Our starting point must be to accept that the Constitution is no place for decisions about women’s bodies and women’s health. It is completely inappropriate and we need to take it out in order to either regulate or legislate for abortion. The Minister has said that will remove the protection the Constitution currently affords to women. I do not accept that argument because we would only then be in the same position as men. In fact, what it would do is remove the conflict between the rights of women and the right of the unborn. As the Minister is aware, doctors have a duty to their patients anyway so I do not think, if constitutional protection is removed, that there will be a free-for-all in terms of endangering women’s lives.

It is the case that some citizens do not agree with abortion and I fully accept their right to make that decision for themselves. I will stand over it and campaign for them not to be forced into abortions but equally that must be a choice for a woman herself. She should not have to justify or explain her decisions and we should not have to be second-class citizens.

We must register that what we do here matters and has consequences and that what we do not do here also matters and has consequences. In the course of the previous discussion on this matter, the Minister referred to the Attorney General arguing and advising the Government against the introduction of the original amendment because of the mess he would create. The Attorney General was right. The Minister hid behind the current Attorney General and did not deal with legislation relating to fatal foetal abnormalities. Since then, a number of citizens have had to be banished from these shores to have that procedure away from their families and support network.

Life is not black and white; it is very complex. The idea that we would have in place laws would dictate what a person can do with their body and health is, to me, reprehensible. As a State, we should be supporting people in their decisions and not adding to the trauma and difficulties that often arise in life.

See this speech in context