Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will forgive me if I am repetitive. We have been here so often that I wonder about the merit of repeating things I have said before. However, there are probably people outside this House who believe the points need to be continually made until we get change. It is pretty clear at this stage that we do not agree on this issue. I respect the Minister's views but I will still make known mine.

According to Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary General of the UN, "sexual and reproductive health rights are at the heart of gender equality, women's rights and women's empowerment".Some 20 years on from the Beijing conference, there is a recognition in the multilateral arena of the importance of women's reproductive rights to global development and to all policy areas and aspects of life. Unfortunately, however, Ireland's legal framework still has not caught up. Our Constitution and, in particular, theeighthamendment, enshrines in law the idea that women are second class citizens, slaves to their own bodies and reproductive capabilities. The fact that a woman's life is only as important as that of a week old foetus is proof of the deep-seated misogyny of our legal system. This issue should not be framed in terms of life and death; it should be about choice, bodily integrity and women's empowerment.

Ireland is one of only two EU countries that does not allow for abortion in cases of rape, incest or health risks and one of three countries that does not consider fatal foetal abnormality to be justifiable grounds for termination. In fact, out of 44 countries in the wider Europe area, only Malta, which bans abortion in all circumstances, manages to outdo us in the restrictive reproductive rights stakes. Our draconian treatment of pregnant women has rightly received the condemnation of several major human rights watchdogs. In its fourth periodic review of Ireland carried out in 2015, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern at the criminalisation of abortion under section 22 of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act, recommending, in particular, that provisions be made in the law to deal, at the very least, with cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormality and risks to the health of the mother. Despite their intention, these laws do not actually stop women from seeking abortions. They only prevent women from receiving the medical care and support they need.

What a great little country we live in. Ireland has effectively been outsourcing its abortions to the UK for decades, with over 3,500 Irish women travelling there for abortions in 2013 alone. These figures are probably an underestimation because many women who travel for an abortion are unlikely to give their home address due to the stigma involved. According to the Irish Family Planning Association, since 1980, over 160,000 women have had to travel to the UK for an abortion. These women are often treated like criminals, abandoned by the Irish health care system in their time of need and excluded from any type of follow-up care, both physical or psychological.

According to TASC, Ireland is now the most unequal country in the EU in terms of the distribution of income, with the top 10% holding up to 58% of Ireland's wealth, compared to 12% for the bottom 50%. Bearing in mind that a woman's ability to choose the outcome of an unwanted pregnancy is hugely dependent on her location, social status and wealth, forcing women to travel abroad, and, therefore, pay a considerable amount of money to access an abortion, feeds into our growing inequality and discriminates against the less well-off.

Yesterday, I read in The Guardiana shocking story about a ten year old girl in Paraguay who became pregnant having been sexually abused by her stepfather and was refused an abortion due to the country's strict reproductive laws. Regardless of the incidence of rape, and the fact that she is a ten year old child, she would only be legally allowed to have an abortion if it could be proven that her life was in danger. Does this sound familiar? According to Amnesty International, forcing this child to bear the physical and psychological effects of having her stepfather's baby at the age of ten is "tantamount to torture". What would happen if this situation had occurred in Ireland?

El Salvador, which also has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, also draws parallels with Ireland. In both countries, medical practitioners face lengthy prison sentences for assisting pregnant women in accessing abortions. Doctors are put in the unenviable situation where they are forced to choose between their duty of care to the patient and their fear of being prosecuted and possibly imprisoned for up to 14 years. The lack of legal clarity for medical practitioners and the fact that the right to life of a notional child is placed on an equal footing as that of a woman resulted in the tragic case of PPv. HSEin December 2014. A woman who was clinically dead and surviving on life support was forced to act as a human incubator for three weeks for a foetus which was at too early a stage in the gestation period to have any hope of surviving outside the womb. It is our Constitution that allows for inhumane practices such as this to continue.

We have heard all the arguments before. We have witnessed the failures of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 in regard to PP v. HSE and also with the case of Ms Y last August, which was a case involving a teenage girl who became pregnant as a result of rape, had then attempted suicide and was refused an abortion and forced to have a caesarean section. The Government shows time and again that it has no real appetite for doing anything meaningful about this issue.

In the Programme for Government 2011-2015, the Government outlines its commitment to "ensuring that the rights of women and men to equality of treatment and to participate fully in society are upheld". How can women achieve equality, or participate fully in society, if they are prevented from having control over their body, health or future?

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