Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As a member of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, I will concentrate on my journey towards the position that I took.

Regarding the committee's approach, while we could have built on the work of the Citizens' Assembly, we regarded this as an evidence gathering stage and we brought our own judgments to bear on the issues having listened to the experts. It is fair to say that, for many of us, this was a major learning exercise that allowed us to make informed decisions on what was a most divisive and difficult issue.

I consider myself pro-life and I would greatly prefer it if no woman ever had to seek an abortion. However, I came to the committee with an open mind. I was willing to listen to the experts and make an evidence-based decision. Every Deputy would agree that we are in the Oireachtas to make the best decisions for citizens based on expert evidence and not our own preconceived ideas. I was conscious of issues around rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality and the availability of termination of pregnancy in such cases. That was as far as my thinking went prior to my committee membership.

I have one caveat regarding the committee's final report - I did not vote to allow abortion on health grounds. While I appreciate the reasoning behind the position that the majority took, I am of the view that decriminalising the termination of pregnancy would be sufficient. It would give enough scope to clinicians to make whatever good faith decisions they needed to make to protect the lives of women.

The ancillary recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly and the all-party Oireachtas committee are as important as the issue itself. For example, improved sex education and access to contraception, obstetric and maternity care, counselling and bereavement support services are equally important.

Ireland has been a cold house for victims of sexual violence since the foundation of the State. I do not intend to go back over high-profile cases in which the State failed vulnerable men, women and children, but I would be failing in my duty if I did not mention Joanne Hayes. I am glad to see that the Taoiseach has apologised to Joanne on behalf of the State. No apology or monetary recompense could ever be enough to atone for what was done to her. Let us be clear - she was not believed because she was a woman. There was no evidence to back up the preposterous accusations being made, yet she was mentally tortured by organs of the State.

The evidence that our committee heard was conclusive, particularly that from Mr. Tom O'Malley. It would be practically impossible to legislate for terminations in cases of rape or incest, as doing so would require some form of proof of rape. Obviously, waiting for a conviction would be practically impossible. For understandable reasons, some women never feel able to report a rape. There is also the question of re-traumatising a woman where she has already been raped and is now pregnant as a result.

There is also the matter of the availability of the abortion pill. When doing a simple Google search for "abortion pill", the first few results will be for the website of the UK company from which such medicines can be bought with ease. The latest figures estimate that up to 1,800 women in Ireland use the abortion pill every year. These pills are illegal here, are taken unsupervised and are dangerous without medical supervision. In the absence of shutting down the Internet, we will never be able to stop women in crisis pregnancies - women who are desperate, alone and afraid - from taking them. We cannot have a garda at every ferry port and airport in Ireland searching for them. Are we really suggesting a return to some kind of "contraceptive train" scenario? If we do nothing, some woman in the not-too-distant future will rupture her uterus and die. It has happened elsewhere and will happen here. I wish to be categorical, in that no matter what the House or, ultimately, the people decide, the abortion pill will still be available and will continue to be used. Let us not close our eyes to that fact. Do we do the usual Irish thing of ignoring it and pretending it goes away or do we do the courageous thing and actually deal with it by taking the only practical option, namely, legalising and regulating the abortion pill up to the medically recommended limit of 12 weeks?

I accept the differing views within the House and the wider country. I wish that I could have come to a different conclusion, but the evidence simply is not there to say that the status quois sustainable.

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