Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The first observation I wish to make is how interested the people in the Chamber are in this Bill. They cannot wait to debate it. Over 70 people in the House committed in advance of the election to supporting a referendum on repealing the eighth amendment. I am stunned by the presence of those who think that a debate on half the population is so important that they turned up and bothered to stay for this debate. As the debate progresses, we will see how many stay away and how many turn up. My guess is that shame, mortification and the fact that they made U-turns are keeping most of them away.

There are experiencing mortification of being called out on their own hypocrisy, and mortification and shame on the question of how women in this country have been treated and continue to be treated. I will quote one of those women. She is known to this House. She is a woman called Ms Amanda Mellet who suffered from fatal foetal abnormality and about whose case the UN human rights committee attacked the State for cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and discrimination and violation of Articles 7 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. To quote Amanda:

I still suffer from complicated grief and unresolved trauma, not from the termination but from the way I was forced to have it. I hope the day will soon come when women in Ireland will be able to access the health services they need in our own country, where we can be with our loved ones, with our own medical team, and where we have our own familiar bed to go home and cry in. Subjecting women to so much additional pain and trauma must not continue.

That is exactly what those on the other side of the House are doing tonight with their tricks, their obfuscation and their twisting to push this Bill down the road by a year. They are forcing more Amanda Mellets into more pain and more trauma. I hope that is as far as it goes. If there is another Savita Halappanavar within the next year, they will have to think long and hard about their position. We have an historic opportunity for the first time in 33 years to rid this country, and particularly the women of this country, of a chain around their ovaries, bodies and lives. That amendment was put into the Constitution when I was a young woman. Along with Deputy Finian McGrath, we were out campaigning against it. We now have an historic opportunity to undo that and that is because of the young people in the Visitors Gallery. Those young women, who were not even born when that amendment was inserted into the Constitution, want the right to be able to say how they live their lives, control their bodies and what this Government has to say to them. They have never had a vote on whether that amendment should stay in the Constitution or not. The Government's amendment to our Bill to kick it down the road at least one whole year means that they probably will not get that chance in the lifetime of this Government, if it lasts that time. The Government has guaranteed that for them.

I will quote figures from very important research in medical journals. Some 250,000 women have left this country, North and South, between the years 1970 and 2015. Today, about ten women a day leave this country to procure abortions. Five years on, Women on Waves estimates that about 5,600 women have contacted it to get the abortion pill.

The legacy of the 1980s, when 15-year old Ann Lovett died giving birth in a graveyard in Longford, the legacy of Savita Halappanavar, the legacy of Ms X and Ms Y and the whole plethora of pain and suffering that was brought on women in this country cannot continue. If the women in the Visitors Gallery represent anything in this country, it will not continue, because despite the Government's obfuscation and kicking to touch, this fight goes on. This campaign to repeal the eighth amendment will not stop. The Government will get its answer on the street. It keeps saying that the centre will hold. Those women are the centre and they will not hold the Government's plan together for it to continue the barbarism and the low moral values of the 1980s. The Government cannot tell those women that it is the boss of them. It will not be allowed to continue.

I want to make a few simple points about this wonderful Citizens' Assembly that the Deputies opposite and the Taoiseach came up with in order to avoid dealing with the question of women having control and a say over their own lives. First of all, let us think about it. A well-off polling company, Red C, based in Dublin and internationally, chooses 99 citizens to sit down with professionals from the legal and medical professions to talk about what is good for women. What is good for women? What is good for me? Do I decide whether I can have a right to terminate a pregnancy or do 99 citizens, a doctor, a lawyer and a judge make that decision? Put that opposite what real democracy looks like: a constitutional referendum that is put before about 3 million voters in this country who are given a free choice to decide whether or not that oppressive amendment stays in the Constitution. There is no part of the Constitution that controls an aspect of a man's health. There is one part of the Constitution that controls an aspect of a human being's health. That is the eighth amendment. It utterly and totally discriminates against half the population. The so-called Citizens' Assembly, with Richard Jolly TV Ltd., a budget of €2 million, Q4PR to do the publicity and Beatrice.ieto do the e-mails is going to tell the vast majority of us how we should live and what we should think.

When the woman at the centre of the X case was imprisoned against her will by this State, I remember marching with a sheet of paper that had "Let her go" written on it, alongside tens of thousands of young girls who burst out of their schools, pushed aside the principles of the nuns and came down to the Department of the Taoiseach day after day to demand "Let her go". When it culminated in a big demonstration of tens of thousands on the street, low and behold, the Supreme Court changed its mind. There you go: the independence of the Judiciary versus the will of the people. It will be the will of the people that will force this House to make a decision and stop kicking it down the road the way it did with water charges, the NAMA legislation and any other challenging issue that came before the Government. It kicked it down the road and hoped it did not come back. It is not going to do that with women and women's lives.

It took 21 years for this House to legislate on the basis of the referendum that took place after the X case - 21 years. What a bunch of cowards. The same bunch of cowards have absented themselves tonight from this House. Tens of thousands marched when Ms Savita Halappanavar tragically lost her life. Tens of thousands marched a few weeks ago, even though there was a bus strike on and it lashed rain. The demand was simple: we want a vote and we want to repeal the eighth amendment.

I wish to illustrate more hypocrisy by people in this House, by the morality of the church and by the State in this country. It is the utter hypocrisy of closed eyes, closed ears and closed mouth, like the three monkeys, to pretend it is not happening. Abortion in this country is a reality. It has been a reality forever and it will remain a reality. Tragically, what will also probably remain a reality are the serious cases like Savita, Ms X and Ms Y. We have the opportunity and duty to now ensure that the Government does not get away with it and that the fight continues.

I have here the abortion pill. It is very simple and very simple to obtain. It can be acquired on Women on Web over the internet. Loads of the young women in the Visitors Gallery are doing that. One of the reasons for that is because it is very safe. The World Health Organization, after trial and trial again, has said that it is safe. It is affordable and it can be obtained here in this State. One can also be sentenced to 14 years for procuring it, taking it and for helping oneself to have an abortion at home. I think, if they put their hands up, there are a load of women in the Visitors Gallery who could be arrested and fill two wings of Mountjoy. I could be arrested and given 14 years for having it, but the Government is not going to do that. Despite what is on the books and in the laws, the Government knows that if it dares to implement it, it would bring hellfire and brimstone down on top of this House and on wider society. We have moved on from the 1980s and the dark ages and we are not going back there. Though this pill will continue to be used, the Government will continue to deny that abortion is already a reality in this country and will be for tens of thousands of women.

I have to say that I was extraordinarily angry with the Independents in particular in the Government and the measures they took today to kick for touch on this issue. My anger is nothing compared with the anger that was felt outside at a relatively decent-sized demonstration at 5.30 p.m. this evening. Young women are furious with them. They are furious with Deputy Katherine Zappone, who was mainly elected on the basis of marriage equality, the repeal the eighth campaign and all of the good liberal and free-thinking things that people hoped to see enacted. They are furious with Deputy Finian McGrath, Deputy John Halligan and with every single one of the TDs and Senators who committed to repealing the eighth amendment in advance of the election. Are they going to do what former Deputy Pat Rabbitte did and make promises just to get elected without implementing them? If Deputy McGrath keeps nodding his head, he will probably be doing so for another year. If the so-called 99 wise men and women come back and tell me what to do with my life at the end of next June, they will already have witnessed an exodus of at least 3,000 women from this country in order to procure an abortion and tens of thousands will be more likely to procure this simple pill in the future.

At least the pill is affordable. Many women, including those in direct provision, do not even have the option to leave the country.

Many women do not have the money or the support at home or they cannot get time off from their jobs or source a childminder. Rich women can do it, but working class and poor women cannot and, disgracefully, we have imprisoned hundreds of women, who have no right to leave this country and return, in direct provision centres. If the UN thinks that it was bad for Amanda Mellet, and it was, and there will be more Amanda Mellets, let it look now at how we treat women in direct provision, poor women and children in care. There are major questions over the behaviour of this Government. It has an opportunity to do something real and meaningful for the future of women in this country, but it will just throw it away, enthusiastically and proudly, with both hands. How dare it?

I guarantee the Minister the fight is not over. The question of pushing for a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment will continue. More people will join in, more trade unions will back it and more workplace groups for repeal will be set up, despite the obfuscation of Fine Gael and the Independents with the collusion more than likely of Fianna Fáil when it comes to the vote on Thursday.

The Government is outrageous. It does not deserve to sit in this House making promises on the one hand and selling out half the population on the other. If tragedies such as these happen again, be it on the heads of those in government. In the meantime, the Government should think about all the women it is exporting and will continue to export until some day, when we have put enough pressure on the Government, we will sit in this House and vote to give the people the possibility of voting on whether they want to repeal the eighth amendment. I think the result of that constitutional referendum is what the Government fears.

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