Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Any debate on the eighth amendment is, was and always will be extremely divisive. However, to really have any understanding of what it means, one must walk in the shoes of a woman facing a crisis pregnancy and, indeed, her partner, or of a doctor who must work under conditions that are not always clear-cut.

The eighth amendment can be viewed as a massive platform of inequality, given the fact the last vote that took place on the matter was in 1983. The people whose lives are directly affected today by this amendment did not vote. In fact, most women of child-bearing age never had the opportunity to vote. Life has changed and the world has changed.

Reports from the UK Department of Health show ten Irish women a day still travel to the UK for abortions, with 3,451 travelling last year. Of those, 5% gave addresses in my constituency in Kildare. While this number has dropped significantly in the last 15 years, Irish women still account for the largest number of non-UK nationals presenting for abortion. The second highest number of women was from the UAE, where abortion is illegal and carries a custodial sentence.

It must be the most cruel and horrific of situations where a woman, hearing the news and feeling the joy that she is going to give birth to a baby nine months hence, then gets the tragic and awful news that the baby is not going to survive past birth. Who am I and who is anyone here to tell that woman what she should do or how she should feel?

We are a caring nation and there can never be a referendum, vote or amendment that will please all. However, it must always be the duty of us all to protect the most vulnerable in society, whether that is the unborn child or protecting a newborn from pain and suffering or saving the life, directly or indirectly, of a pregnant woman. As a society, we know so much more than we did over 30 years ago. We have revealed and discovered so much in the last 30 years about our nation. Ireland is now welcoming the people of nations across the earth. We are required to welcome those fleeing war and abuse and those escaping death and violence. Can they arrive in a country with so little choice and with such restrictions?

A change in law, one hopes, could only mean we are moving forward and evolving. Yet, it remains true what Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the hospice movement, said: you matter and you matter for every moment of your life. Free will and choice are powerful gifts. One person's wish may be another person's tragedy. The terms that are used when debating the eighth amendment can be hurtful and insulting to those who have faced the horrors of losing a child before or after birth. Terms such as "incompatible with life" and "fatal foetal abnormality" are often far too clinical to be used in times of such grief for a family. While such medical terms may often be required by medical professionals to allow them to cope with the difficult choices they have to make, we must remember the term coined by Orla O'Connell, a researcher in Cork University Hospital, while establishing the necessity for prenatal palliative care: incompatible with life but not with love.

My honest opinion is that I battle with what I feel about what is right and what is wrong. It is wrong to destroy a life but it is wrong to refuse a choice to a woman who is in this situation about what is right for her. It cannot be right that a woman has to carry a child that will not survive if that woman does not wish to do so. We have to listen to all sides with respect.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion without being labelled "pro-life" or "pro-choice". As far as I can see, everybody is pro-life, but to be labelled as one or the other causes great disrespect.

A referendum is the right way to go but we must be clear and unambiguous about the wording that would replace the current wording. The Government should have dealt with this by having a judge-led commission, which my party suggested, and by bringing forward wording to the House and ultimately the people in order that they could make a decision. It is a huge decision for our nation and all its people.

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