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

The Anti-Austerity Alliance supports any attempt, including this Bill, to legislate for rogue crisis pregnancy agencies. The purpose of such agencies is not to help women. Their sole purpose is to prevent women from having abortions and to use any lies and intimidation they possibly can. These agencies are generally staffed by anti-choice volunteers, although there is a trend of late to employ medical staff, and even to use ultrasounds - to show women ultrasounds and try to use medical science to frighten women.

The key words these agencies use in the advertising of their services on the Internet are, for instance, "Scared" and "Family planning" to fool people. Obviously, many and probably most of the women who contact them in the first place are seeking to get information about abortion, at least as one of the options and, if not, they have already made up their mind. They generally pop up as the first item in any search engine, if one googles "crisis pregnancy". They even use terms like "abortion information", as a way to get click bait and get people to look for them, and often they locate near counselling centres to fool people, using names such as "reproductive choices", which is obviously completely the opposite of what they stand for. They prey on the most vulnerable - women who are the least likely to be able to pay for or access information. As has been said, usually what they do is cause a delay in the woman seeking an abortion, leading to later abortions in many cases. The stories have already been well told here tonight about the myths that they perpetuate, that abortion leads to breast cancer, it leads one to abusing children in the future etc. and therefore I do not need to spend too much time on that.

The Minister has agreed to support the Bill but one point that really struck me in the course of his contribution, which I googled during the rest of the debate, is that he tells us there is legislation in place to tackle rogue crisis pregnancy agencies. He talked about what is known as the 1995 abortion information Act, the full name of which is Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State For Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995, which was obviously brought in following the X case. I checked it out. In section 5(b)(iii), if one gives information or counselling to anyone who is pregnant who is seeking information and if it is inaccurate and not objective, one can be taken to court. I would ask the Minister why is he not doing so then? If he is telling us that there is something in statute, how many persons have been prosecuted in the past 21 years under this Act? I would like the Minister to come back and answer that because it is outrageous that this has been going on for nearly a quarter of a century and yet nothing has been done about it. Why are these clinics not being shut down on the basis of that Act? Do we even need this Bill? The Minister needs to explain why that Act has not been invoked despite him expressing concerns when this all came out and the story was broken by those investigative journalists.

The elephant in the room here is that we should not be meeting late tonight to discuss this in the first place. The only reason we are having this discussion is that we have the eighth amendment, which bars not only abortion but information about abortion and makes it extremely difficult for women to get that information.

I am absolutely gobsmacked. Deputies Michael Collins and Mattie McGrath - I was going to say "Deputies Trump" - find it surprising that a woman might go to her doctor and not tell that she has had an abortion. What planet are they living in? It is because of people like them that women have to do that, that a woman cannot be honest with her own doctor because there is a 14-year jail sentence. Abortion is a criminal offence. Lots of women do not tell doctors that they have had abortions and I am surprised that they are surprised about that.

In relation to the allegation Deputy Michael Collins, who is from Cork, made, one would think women from Cork and Tipperary never had abortions. Of course, they do.

Deputy Michael Collins referred to abortion pills without medical supervision. That is because women cannot get medical supervision. The pills are illegal precisely because of people like him.

With regard to the Irish Family Planning Association, IFPA, I would be very surprised if it told women to tell lies to their doctors. My knowledge of the association is that it sticks very much to the letter of the law. I have criticised the association in the case of the migrant rape victim. She was attending the association for months for counselling. That poor girl, who was effectively tortured in this country, should have been given, or at least been directed to, safe but illegal abortion pills if she wanted them, or at least told about the website. I am sure the association did not do that because it was afraid, so I would be surprised if it was giving inaccurate information.

I wish to comment on the likes of Deputy Mattie McGrath. He said that lies are worse when they are told by women. I am not sure what he meant by that, but I will tell him the truth now. He is a sexist, backward man with an inordinate interest in women's bodies. That is the unvarnished truth. There is something very distasteful about older men lecturing younger women, who are generally affected by these issues, in such a way. It must be said. This is something that will never affect them, yet they are judging and talking about women in this way.

I wish to point to some items that could potentially be added to the Bill. One of the dangers with the Bill, and it is not a danger with the proposers of the Bill, is that I hope it is not just a way to avoid dealing with the abortion issue and abortion information in Ireland. We must have a situation where the eighth amendment is repealed and abortion is fully decriminalised. The reason women are skulking around back alleys looking for information is that they cannot get it. Once abortion is criminalised there is a penalty attached to helping somebody to get one. What is even more disgraceful is that it is illegal to give women information on how to access safe legal abortion in England outside of a one-to-one counselling session. That is the situation in this country. However, it is perfectly legal for religious fundamentalists, which is effectively what they are, and the ghouls who prey on women in these rogue agencies to tell women with crisis pregnancies a pack of lies. No legal action is taken against them, yet one cannot give somebody information on how to access a safe abortion.

Another addition that could be made, and the Anti-Austerity Alliance would be willing to table such an amendment, is to add sex educators to the potential list. I will outline the reason. At present, agencies such as Life Pregnancy Care and Family & Life are going into schools and giving precisely the same information to young children. In 2014 an investigation by The Irish Timesfound that students were being given sex education in schools by teachers and outside agencies such as those I mentioned. In those lessons students were told that abortion damages a woman's internal organs and it destroys a woman's mental health. They were also told that a woman who has an abortion might feel she is being punished if she suffers a miscarriage in a later pregnancy. The third piece of information was that women can feel suicidal and might harm themselves after having an abortion. The fourth piece was that life begins at the moment of conception, which is not something most people in this country believe. Otherwise, they would not support morning-after contraception. It is something a small group of religious people believe. The students were also told that the most important person during pregnancy is the baby, so the woman receives no regard at all. This is what is being taught in schools at present. If we intend to close down rogue pregnancy counselling agencies, we should also shut down these agencies from infecting our children with this dangerous nonsense at an age when they are liable to be influenced and unable to challenge it. The Minister should consider that.

Finally, the Minister said that our women deserve more. They do deserve more. They deserve to have the right to have these services in their own country and not to have to skulk around Dorset Street or elsewhere, in fear and ignorance, seeking information. It is time for him to repeal the eighth amendment.

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