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

I formally propose the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2014. If adopted, following a referendum of the people, it would have the effect of deleting Article 40.3.3o, otherwise known as the eighth amendment, from the Constitution. This would allow the Dáil to then draft legislation, as it sees fit, to permit abortion in the State. The Bill was published last September by the Socialist Party Members, Deputy Joe Higgins and myself, and it is being supported by the Anti-Austerity Alliance Member, Deputy Paul Murphy, who will speak after me. This is the sixth time in the lifetime of this Government that the issue of abortion has had to be debated. This is the second repeal Bill in that time. We recently had a Bill to provide for abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities, which was voted down in the House in inverse proportion to the beliefs held by the general population at a ratio of 80:20. Let us remember the reason cited by those Members who claimed they had real sympathy for the women affected by that trauma. They said constitutional change was required to stop those women being banished from their own country at such a traumatic time. The Deputies and parties who claim to support repeal of the eighth amendment have an opportunity to show that support again.

Under this Government, we have seen cases brought about due to the existence of the eighth amendment which have appalled people throughout this country and internationally. First was the tragic death of a young woman in her prime, Savita Halappanavar, which brought 20,000 people onto the streets. Still, the political establishment did not listen to the demands for change. A woman who requested a termination was refused and left to suffer as only her health and not her life was deemed to be in danger. The gamble went wrong and she died tragically. Last summer, we had the effective torture of the most vulnerable person one could imagine, a teenage migrant made pregnant by rape and who was suicidal. She begged the authorities in this country to allow her to have an abortion and was instead forced to deliver a baby almost at full term, making a mockery of the cowardly voting in of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, which we were told would permit abortion in such cases. Last Christmas, we had the obscenity of a family being forced to go the courts to be allowed to bury their own daughter who was clinically dead and pregnant and being kept alive artificially by doctors who were in fear and who cited the eighth amendment. How much longer can the political establishment in this country hold to a barbaric medieval law which equates a woman with a foetus and leads to these situations?

Of course, it is not just the so-called hard cases that require change. We must end the hypocrisy whereby we pretend that there is no abortion in Ireland. As we speak, 13 women are packing their bags and leaving this country in secrecy, in stigma and at huge personal cost to themselves and their families. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service estimates that one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Who are these women? They are the relatives friends, neighbours, wives and girlfriends of politicians in here. An unknown number are ordering Mifepristone and Misoprostol, the so-called abortion pills, on the Internet. They will carry out medical abortions in their own homes today. This is an extremely safe practice which is used all around the world and approved by the World Health Organization. It is available in pharmacies all around the world, but not in this country. It is being left to doctors and Women on Web to voluntarily provide this service in countries where it is banned, including Ireland.

Can we look at where the eighth amendment has positioned this country? Obviously, it makes us a second-class backwater in the context of the European Union and the so-called developed world. It also places Ireland behind so-called developing or Third World countries where abortion is generally legal where a woman's health or life is at risk and in cases of rape and incest. They include countries like India, where Savita was from, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tunisia and Zambia. Even in Saudi Arabia, where they cannot drive cars, women are allowed to have abortions where their health is at risk. Ireland is behind these countries. How do the Minister and the Government feel about that? So lowly are women valued in this country that we are forced to have this debate again.

Every woman in Ireland is a potential victim of the eighth amendment, but it is sick, poor and working class women who pay most dearly for this hypocrisy. Last year, 26 migrant women were refused abortions in this country. The only way this hypocrisy has been able to continue for so long is because of the unique, inordinate power given by this State since its inception to the Catholic Church. The church has interfered and dictated in people's personal lives over their sexuality and so on. We have an upcoming referendum on marriage equality which I hope will be a step towards progress in this context. In particular, the church sought to control the lives and bodies of women. However, politicians have been saved from having to act, because they have been saved the spectacle of back-street abortions, which is what forced most other countries to act. This is because of the nearby escape valve of Britain since 1967. This escape valve has been constantly eroded, however, because of austerity. Working class women, in particular, cannot find the €1,500, which is generally the cost of going to Britain or Europe to access an abortion. The effect is simply to force them to have later abortions. That is the only effect of the abortion ban, because banning abortion does not stop it. For example, our abortion rate is much higher than that of the Netherlands where abortion is free and very unrestricted.

In recent debates, Ministers have made statements on the eighth amendment. We have a bizarre and surreal situation in which the Minister for Health himself has called this law restrictive and said it has a chilling effect on doctors.

He essentially admits that it imperils women's health. He has a moral duty to act to remove such a barrier to women's health and he should be actively persuading the Government to repeal Article 40.3.3°. The other party in government, the Labour Party, recently reiterated its opposition to the amendment. Will they seriously troop in here on Tuesday to vote against something they claim to support?

We cannot keep reciting the mantra, "We will not revisit this issue." The people got a chance to speak last in 1983. My generation was shunned. We should not be shunning this generation. All the polls show a significant change in social attitudes on this issue. Effectively, 10% of people oppose abortion under any circumstances, and all of the other 90% support it under certain circumstances. Will we keep legislating for the 10%?

A majority also favour dealing with this in the lifetime of the current Government. The political establishment in this Chamber is way behind the general population. The work that we in the Socialist Party have done on the streets campaigning with the ROSA group has received significant levels of support, particularly among younger people, who do not view abortion in the same way as the older Members generally in this Dáil.

If this Bill is passed, the issue must be voted on by referendum, which is the mandate that the Government says it does not have. How much more of a mandate can one get than by holding a referendum of the general populace? That cannot be used as an excuse. The referendum could be held in the autumn after a sufficient period for debate. Will the Labour Party seriously allow the legacy of a Catholic Church-influenced State to be retained? I am talking about the legacy of controlling women's bodies and lives and denying them health care and rights, and the culture of subservience to the church that led to the Magdalen laundries, symphysiotomies and the mother and baby homes - issues that still have not been dealt with by the Legislature here. We also call on Sinn Féin to support this Bill and to carry through the policy it has latterly adopted.

My last word is directed at Fianna Fáil, which has recently decided that, apparently, the eighth amendment does not matter. It would seem its members have decided to position themselves as backwoodsmen. No wonder they do not represent women. They clearly are out of touch with the general population. They should change their position and grow a spine on behalf of women in this country.

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