Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister on his speech. I commend the work of the committee and the Citizens' Assembly. I was critical of the Government's decision to delegate these deliberations to the Citizens' Assembly. While I believe that any Government worth its salt should have taken responsibility itself for ending Ireland's cruel and degrading treatment of women, I respect the work done and sacrifices made by the members of the Citizens' Assembly and the committee.

It is important for us to understand how the committee arrived at its recommendations. By this, I mean that if Members of the House or members of the public have a conscientious objection to, or are wary of, the recommendations, I urge them to try to understand the building blocks and logic of the committee's deliberations. In this respect, I first want to address the issues of a threat to the life of the mother and a threat to the health of a mother.

The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act permits abortion only where there is a risk to the life of a pregnant woman. While I fundamentally opposed the introduction of this incredibly restrictive Act, and still do, I believe most people would agree, even if they described themselves as pro-life, that where there is a threat to the life of a mother, access to abortion should be permitted. It would be perverse to think otherwise. While I have been always in favour of access to abortion when there was a threat to the health of the woman, there are those who see the life of the foetus as being more important than the health of the woman. Obviously, I do not agree with this view, but there are others who do. As I said, however, we need to understand how the committee arrived at its recommendations.

Fundamental and crucial to the decision of the committee is the timing of critical clinical decision-making in saving a woman's life. Maternity medical professionals say it is dangerous and unworkable to leave or ignore a threat to a woman's health until a clear threat to her life is identified. That transition between a threat to the health of the woman and a threat to her life can, and does, happen extremely quickly and it can quickly become too late. Medical practice requires flexibility, which the current law does not permit. Doctors cannot adequately measure or grade risk. Medical risk, especially medical risk during pregnancy, is just too unpredictable. It is also too personal to be divided into low or high risk. I am referring here to the doctors' definition of risk but also, of course, to the woman's definition of risk or, indeed, to a father's or partner's definition of risk.

Some women may have a high tolerance for risk and may be even willing to let that risk shift - it can shift very rapidly until it is too late - from a risk to her health to a risk to her life. That, of course, would be her decision and she would be free to make it, but no woman should be forced to put her life at risk. We should not define risk in the Constitution or legislation. Surely that is self-evident. Medical risk should be considered in a clinical setting, in real time, by medical specialists.

The crucial building block in the committee arriving specifically at its "12 weeks and without reason" decision was the issue of pregnancy as a result of rape or other sexual assault. Opinion polls indicate that the majority of Irish people do not think it is humane to force a woman to carry to term a pregnancy that is the result of rape or incest. Irish people are not that cruel. While people may accept this, they may have issues with the 12-week period and the recommendation that no reason for a termination should be specified. I urge people to remain open-minded in terms of understanding the logic of this recommendation. The expert legal advice given at the committee established what is essentially the impossibility of legislating for rape. This impossibility relates to the burden of proof that would be required in such cases. The precedent of an adjudication process has been already established by the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act and would see a raped woman questioned, put on trial and forced to relive the worst experiences of her life.

It is an accepted fact that rape is considerably under-reported. Rape victims have incredible difficulty reporting rape to anyone, never mind the Garda or an adjudication panel wishing to determine whether they are deserving of a termination. Four hundred silent calls were received by the Rape Crisis Centre last year. That is absolutely heartbreaking. Imagine being a victim of rape, picking up the phone and not being able to get the words out - not a single syllable. Some people will take a long time to report their rape and others never will, for a variety of complex reasons.

Rape removes power and autonomy from victims. Every single rape involves non-consensual sex and, therefore, involves an abuse of power. The inclusion of an adjudication process for rape cases in legislation would remove even more power from raped women. They would be judged before being allowed to access medical services.

If rape is a specific basis for abortion, then someone will have to decide whether this basis has been satisfied. The "up to 12 weeks without reason" is specifically a way to deal with this problem and to avoid retraumatising rape victims. This is why the committee has recommended access to termination of pregnancy with no restriction as to reason. This recommendation needs to be understood in this context. It is not the result of some big liberalising agenda; instead, it is an act of compassion for the victims of rape.

Abortion is already a reality in Ireland and has been for a very long time. We just outsource the services to the UK. Some 170,000 women that we know of have travelled for abortions since the eighth amendment was introduced. We know that, in 2016 alone, there were approximately 3,000 requests from Ireland for abortion pills online. One may not agree with abortion in certain or any circumstances but it is already a reality, and we owe it to women to legislate for it.

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