Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

For those of us who were members of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, we are at a peculiar juncture now where we have been through months of discussion on this issue, yet, for many of the general public, this is the start of the run into the referendum campaign, an issue for which some people have waited a lifetime.

I have heard people speak about being surprised at the way the Citizens' Assembly had approached this matter and by the outcome and by the outcome of the committee's deliberations. If they were surprised, it means that they had not been listening in the past few years. It is clear to me that attitudes in Ireland have changed dramatically in the last period, even from the days when I first came into this House and Deputies Mick Wallace, Joan Collins and I first raised the issue here. The position is now different. When we first raised the matter a number of years ago, it coincided with an awakening outside the House. Four women appeared on "The Late Late Show" and spoke about coming home from England having had an abortion because of fatal foetal abnormalities. It was the first time people had begun to come out into the open to say their names, tell their stories and shed the stigma that had surrounded the reality of abortion in Ireland. This is not a debate on whether there is abortion in Ireland. There is. As Irish citizens, we have a constitutional right to an abortion, but, shamefully, that constitutional right has to be exercised beyond these shores. It is a constitutional right to travel from our home for a medical procedure and obtain information on it, but we cannot have that treatment at home. In that sense, most people have woken up and realise they know many people who have had an abortion. They might not know that they know them as they might not have told them, but one can be guaranteed that everybody knows many women who have had an abortion, whether mothers, daughters, sisters, friends or wives. It is a normal part of reproductive life in any society. I am sorry that I am getting emotional and do not know why that it is, but we have come a long way.

I thank Senator Catherine Noone and the committee secretariat. The staff of the Oireachtas who supported the work of the committee were outstanding in what they delivered.

Other Deputies have made points about the experts who came and those who gave of their time. They shared their expertise. I take offence at the way some of them were castigated and decried as advocates. They are experts in their field. They are experts in medicine, the law or human rights. They are compassionate human beings and were there to talk to us about life in Ireland and point a way forward. The committee and the Citizens' Assembly produced the outcome that they produced because we had listened and heard really strong factual medical, legal and human rights evidence. We heard from people on the damage the eighth amendment had caused in impacting negatively on the care of pregnant women. We heard from Professor Arulkumaran who confirmed the direct role the eighth amendment had played in the tragic death of Savita Hallappanvar. We heard from members of the medical profession in hospitals and general practice clinics on the fear of prosecution and the impact it had had on a daily basis on the clinical and professional judgment of doctors and staff in hospitals. We heard about the chilling effect of the criminalisation of abortion as a result of the eighth amendment. We heard clearly that it was only in this area of women's health care that there was such interference with the right of a doctor to treat a patient appropriately. We also heard from human rights experts on how Ireland was an outlier and in breach of the fundamental rights of female citizens. The cases of Amanda Mellet and others stand out. We should remind ourselves that in recent years the State has been found guilty of discrimination and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment which had aggravated the shame and stigma associated with criminalisation. We listened to expert opinion. I defy anybody who slagged off the work of the committee, generalised its arguments behind sloganeering and cheap headlines to sift through the deliberations of the committee and the Citizens' Assembly and the evidence and way in which it was conducted. Having done that, I defy them to come back and cast aspersions about the functioning of the committee.

My only issue is, having heard all of the evidence, why the committee did not go further. Ireland is an outlier on this issue compared to equivalent societies in Europe or other modern, advanced countries. Ireland stands out as being completely different in the health care provided for women. I am delighted, however, that the committee was clear on the main recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly. We were very clear that we needed to remove the eighth amendment from the Constitution. We need to decriminalise abortion and place this aspect of women's health care in a medical setting where it belongs.

I forgot to say that I welcomed the speech of the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, on which I would like to compliment him. I support his comments that it is unacceptable that women cannot access medical help in Ireland and that we cannot turn our backs any longer. Fair play to him.

I echo the points made by other Deputies and hope we mean what we say when we say we will have a referendum in May. There is an expectation that that will be delivered, especially among young people and students who largely leave these shores to work abroad in the summer, that the referendum will be held at a time when they can participate in it. It is their call. We are past it, thankfully, but it is a matter for young people who never had an opportunity vote on the issue in the first place. We need to stick to the deadline suggested. We need to deliver and hold the referendum in May and be mindful of the participation of young people in that regard.

It struck me when I heard about the death of Mr. Peter Sutherland more than a week ago, that in some ways there was a little irony in the fact that he had been the Attorney General who had advised the Government not to insert the eight amendment into the Constitution. Many points have been made to eulogise his legacy, but that is one I have not really heard mentioned anywhere. That is probably the only thing on which I would have agreed with him, but that is a separate argument. I definitely agreed with him on that issue and he was right. It has caused enormous problems and been a disaster and a scourge for women. Not only that, it has been an absolute joke. It was sold on the basis that it would mean that there would be no abortion in Ireland, but some 170,000 Irish women have had to leave these shores for an abortion. On the ground of abject failure alone, the eighth amendment should go. It has just meant that having an abortion is more expensive, that it takes place later, that more often it takes place surgically rather than medically and that many Irish women have been put through huge trauma in having to travel for medical care. Unfortunately, it has also meant that some Irish women cannot travel; those who are vulnerable, poor, too young or too sick cannot access it. Standing over that continued hypocrisy is just not on. We need to send a strong signal in that regard. The tone of the discussion broadly has been very good. The tone at the committee largely was very good, although not always.

The media need to take note too. There are elements which, perhaps to deal with flagging newspaper sales, are trying to go back to 1983 to have a them-and-us and zealots-on-all-sides type of debate on this issue. There was even that nonsense in The Irish Timeslast week, but I do not accept that that is the case. This is not a divisive issue. It is a very personal one for many citizens and there are no sides. There are no rights and wrongs. Human beings are making private, personal decisions about their lives and it is the job of the State to support those decisions. That is all that we can do. Some of the media have been irresponsible and should think about this.

We would like the public to have access to the expert legal and medical opinion that the committee and the Citizens' Assembly received during their deliberations in a reasoned, mature manner and not have the have red herring arguments that have been introduced, including the appalling use of people with disabilities and references to the elimination of people with Down's syndrome, when we know the majority of abortions take place in the early weeks of pregnancy - up to nine weeks - whereas Down's syndrome is not usually detected until after 12 weeks. These very wrong arguments are being used to distort and manipulate in an emotive, non-evidence-based way.

One of the interesting statements in the debate over the recent period was the position of Catholics for Choice, which was published earlier this week. It made a good statement, which I would like to put on the record:

Many of the hierarchy’s teachings on reproductive rights have not been received by the faithful. For instance, the majority of Catholic women have made conscience-based decisions to use contraception responsibly, and Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as other women. They understand these can be ethical choices.

Armed with the knowledge that conscience is not about imposing beliefs that are out of sync with people’s lives but that it is about allowing the faithful to formulate their own moral positions, Irish Catholics have evolved in their thinking about abortion. They can reconcile the complexities of these weighty matters.

They know you can be a woman who believes she would not have an abortion in any circumstances, but yet can support the right of other women to do so. Or that you have had an abortion and do not want other women to face the restrictions you faced; or that as a man you respect the right of every woman to make her own decision and be author of her own life.

That is powerful testimony because I have never met an abortion advocate or anybody who is pro-abortion in the same way I am not pro-hip replacement. Every person should not have their hip replaced but I recognise that it is necessary if someone needs that medical care and I stand over his or her right to have it. This is exactly the same. This is about respecting people's choices in the first place and not about killing unborn babies. That is an utter nonsense.

This issue starts with women faced with crisis pregnancies. A crisis pregnancy in some instances is very much a planned and wanted pregnancy where something tragic happens along the way. Something happens to the foetus such that it is no longer compatible with life or something happens to the woman where her life or her health will be impaired and in consultation with her doctor or her partner, she decides that the best thing for her health and well-being is to terminate the pregnancy. Other crisis pregnancies are not planned. They happen because a woman is raped and violated. Are we seriously suggesting that if a pregnancy follows the rape, that person should be shackled to it and that her husband, partner or other children should have to endure a pregnancy because of that? It is absolutely abhorrent to most people that that would happen. What about the young student who was about to start a new career and who gets pregnant in college; or the woman who has come off drugs, for example, and who has just had her children who were in care returned to her and cannot deal with another child; or the woman who is homeless and does not have a roof over her head; or the older woman who has raised her children and who for the first time in her life is getting her own life back and unexpectedly finds herself pregnant? These are Irish women and they are the same as women in every other country. They weigh up their life decisions and they make the best decision for them, which they should do with support.

Some mad issues were raised at the committee hearings and, even last night, the issue of adoption was introduced. Deputy Michael Healy Rae mentioned a constituent of his who asked him to read out a text message to beg that we would not have abortion in Ireland because he was adopted and he had a great life. What is that about? Few children are put for adoption in Ireland nowadays. We supposedly do not have adoption now. How in God's name, therefore, could repeal of the eighth amendment do anything about that? It could not. If someone wants to do something about adoption and boost the numbers of children to be adopted, then the payments to lone parents should be reduced with people forced into a position where they cannot afford to raise their own children. The fact the people have the means to raise children has had the biggest impact on reducing the adoption figures, not abortion. I support the call of the Archbishop of Dublin who said that we should support the payments to single parents and so on if people do not have the economic means to raise their children in dignity on their own. All people should have the right to do this so when people say they are arguing in favour of an end to this, they are not advocating abortion. It is not up to me to tell anybody else what to do and I never would. It is about supporting the decisions that people make.

I received a moving letter, as I am sure many other Members did, from a parent of a child who was diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality and who lived for a short time, which described the pleasure the child gave the family. I fully support and accept this narrative and I am glad the family had that brief period of joy. Would that it would have been otherwise but that will not change if we repeal the eighth amendment. Those people can still continue with the pregnancy and have those brief moments of joy but the position of other people who cannot deal with that scenario for a plethora of other reasons has to be understood and equally respected. That is all that has to be done here. All that we, that is, people who support women's rights and the right to an abortion, are saying is that a woman knows best about her body and her life circumstances and, in conjunction with her doctor and her family, is in the best place to know what is best for her and when is the best time to have a child and to be supported in that decision. That is all a responsible society can do.

I have heard comments about the floodgates opening following repeal but that is a nonsense. Irish women have abortions all the time and repeal will not have an impact on that. Everybody would be supportive of reducing the number of abortions. It would be great. The evidence given to the committee shows how that can be done. We can do it by reducing the number of crisis pregnancies and investing properly in a free, comprehensive contraception programme, proper sex education in schools and in increasing the payments to lone parents and parents of children with disabilities and so on in order that people can choose to have children and have the right to raise them in respect and dignity. That is all a society can do.

The Taoiseach made the point in apologising to Joanne Hayes that we are in a different place from where we were in the 1980s, but it is the same place. It took 34 years to apologise to Joanne Hayes. Thirty five years later, we are standing over the eighth amendment and we still have a situation where abortion is criminalised. However, at the same time, it is a very different time. Things need to change to reflect that in order that we can end the dark days when women's reproductive choices are a source of shame and stigma, which should not be talked about and should be hidden away, and move to a society that is open, tolerant and appreciative of all the different aspects of people's lives.

I compliment everybody who has been involved in this process so far. I urge the Government to listen to what the committee said and, in particular, to our call for a repeal simpliciterwith access to abortion for a minimum without restriction as to reason up to 12 weeks, which is based on our proper findings. There has to be a referendum in May in order that we can bring the country to a completely different place and do justice by our young people.

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