Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Taoiseach is going to consider gender as an issue. It is very generous of him. The last time I looked, only one gender on the planet could become pregnant, namely, women. There seems to be a gulf. The Taoiseach has been here 40 years and was in the Dáil when the eighth amendment was foisted on us. It should not have been put into the Constitution. There are issues that should not be in a Constitution. This is health issue that affects women. Many other issues are not in the Constitution. The Taoiseach does not seem to understand that women must make this decision. Nobody else can do it, given that nobody else will carry the pregnancy to full term, bring up a child, or whatever the circumstances are, whether the woman is too young, too old, does not have enough money or has health reasons. Nobody else can make the decision but women. All the Taoiseach is doing with this ban is forcing women to leave the country. Whether or not abortion is legal makes no difference to the abortion rate.

I thought I was listening to another party when I heard Deputy Micheál Martin talking earlier about how he led the movement for gay rights. There is a strange phenomenon whereby people are boasting about how they championed marriage equality and yet they do not seem to see a contradiction when they suppress women's rights.

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