Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute on this historic debate on what is a key issue for women's rights and health care. I found it difficult to put together the words for my contribution because the other committee members and I had spent the best part of the past four months focused on and immersed in this issue. We dedicated our time to listening to the evidence and hearing the facts, be they legal, medical or academic, surrounding this contentious, divisive and emotive subject.

I thank the committee Chair, Senator Noone, for her diligence, patience and expertise. Chairing the committee was difficult. I also thank the clerk and his team, who did a fantastic job.

I feel strongly about this issue, but I will try my best to remain composed. Regardless of whether we realise it, we all know someone who has been affected by the eighth amendment. It may have involved a fatal foetal abnormality or a pregnancy that she deemed for certain reasons to be a crisis in her life. For those engaging in this debate inside and outside the House, it is important to remember that, when they speak, they do not know who is listening, how people have been affected or to whom they are talking.

Approximately 170,000 women have accessed a termination abroad and they could be listening to them when they make their remarks.

One of the matters with which we must grapple is the type of country we want to live in and the type of country we actually live in right now. What values do we hold dear? I want to live in a country that is compassionate, caring, just, fair and equal. Can we really say today that women who find themselves in crisis pregnancies feel as though they are living in a country with those values? Our history in this country of the treatment of women is one that I find shameful; it angers and upsets me. On a regular basis, scandals emerge or we revisit a previous scandal or an atrocity that took place not very long ago. We have had discussions recently about the Tuam mother and baby home and mother and baby homes more generally, the Magdalene laundries, the Kerry babies tragedy and the treatment of Joanne Hayes. These black marks on our society are from the very recent past. Although we have come a long way from those times and the way that we treated women in this country, which was to lock them up, throw away the key and not talk about it, I wonder how far we have actually come when I recall some of the commentary we had to listen to in the committee room about women and why they make the choices they make. There have been so many negative comments that I could be here all day talking about them. l received a tweet today that reads, "You should now try to identify the murdering mothers who are travelling to the UK for abortions and have them jailed for breaking the law". That is one of many such tweets and if people want to visit any of the Twitter or social media pages of committee members, they will see the visceral comments with which we have been dealing for the past four months. One individual said to me that if women do not want babies they should close their legs. Another man said that women will use abortion as a form of contraception if we let them do it. Another person said to me that women these days are just too posh to push. These are types of comments we are listening to and it is difficult to believe they are being made today. One would think these are comments from 30 or 40 years ago but they have been made recently.

I do not accept the labelling of people in this debate as being anti-life. I consider myself to be pro-life; we are all pro-life. However, we must be realistic about the difficulties, challenges and crises facing women. The reality is that we must deal with this. We can no longer sub-contract this out to a different jurisdiction, close our eyes and ears and refuse to talk about it because it is too difficult. In particular, I would suggest that Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas must consider whether we are dealing with this properly. Are we happy to continue with the status quo? If Members are against the repeal of the eighth amendment, that means they want no change and want to maintain the status quo. That means that if a woman has been raped, they are content for her to be forced to remain pregnant against her will. It also means that if a young girl is pregnant as a result of incest, she should be forced to continue that pregnancy. It means that couples who are expecting a much-wanted baby and who receive a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality will not be cared for here at home. That is what being against the repeal of the eighth amendment means - that one is happy for the status quo to be maintained.

Members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution were asked to consider the recommendations of the Citizen's Assembly and to put forward our own recommendations and report. We were not beholden to the Citizen's Assembly report but were guided by it. We meticulously and painstakingly went through every recommendation and we heard evidence and facts for ourselves. We brought in legal, medical and academic experts in the area and listened for hours to evidence - not to opinion but to facts. We came on a journey together, one of which I am very proud. We showed that as a cross-party committee we could work together to produce a report that I hope will be of some significant guidance to the Minister for Health, his Department and to Government in formulating the question and to the citizens of this country when they ultimately make the decision for this country.

It is worth noting that the committee took a different view to the Citizen's Assembly on some issues. We did not just follow all of their recommendations but came up with some of our own. We recommended, as a majority, termination of pregnancy without restriction up to 12 weeks. The Citizen's Assembly recommendation was up to 22 weeks, so we diverged on that issue. We also took a specific vote on non-fatal foetal abnormality in the area of disability and almost unanimously rejected it as a ground for termination. Any suggestion, therefore, that the committee is seeking to use disability as a ground for termination is abhorrent. I totally reject that because it is factually incorrect and misleading and anyone who puts forward that point of view needs to read the committee's report again, if he or she has not done so already.

It is also worth noting that some committee members have said publicly that they changed their minds. They came to the committee with one view and left with another and the same thing happened with the Citizen's Assembly. Nobody expected that the assembly would produce the report it did. The commentary in the days following publication of its report was that it was very liberal, that nobody expected it and commentators asked how the members got there. They got there because they were educated on the actual facts, realities and the medical and legal evidence that prevails today. They went on a journey, starting at one point and after hearing all of the facts and the evidence, they produced their report. The same thing happened at the Oireachtas committee. We listened to the facts and evidence and I find it difficult to understand how anybody, having heard the evidence we heard in that committee, could be opposed to repealing the eighth amendment or to at least having some flexibility in the law.

The committee heard lots of expert evidence. We do not have time to go through all of it today but some of it is certainly worth putting on the record of the Dáil. This is the information that we digested and it formed the basis of our decisions. Dr. Abigail Aiken said that between 1970 and 2016, at least 184,000 Irish women travelled to England and Wales to access abortion in a clinic. Those figures came from the UK's Department of Health. Her evidence shows that since 2007, women in Ireland have been accessing the abortion pill which can be delivered by An Post to one's door. Since records detailing the numbers accessing the abortion pill began in 2010, some 5,650 women have had the pill delivered to them in Ireland. Dr. Aiken interviewed some of the Irish women that have accessed the pill at home and asked them for their views. One of the women she spoke to was Edel, a 29 year old mother, who said the following:

God no, I couldn’t talk to any doctors about it, definitely not, because I was just so scared. You hear these horror stories of women getting arrested and imprisoned. So I was completely alone. I did go in when I found I was at first pregnant when I didn't know what I was going to do and I went in and said, “okay, I'm pregnant”, but I obviously never told them any of my intentions. And their reaction was just like, “great, you're pregnant, we'll put you in for your 12-week scan”. But I couldn’t say anything because you don't know what they're going to react.

That is the challenge of women taking the pill at home, alone, unsupervised and without access to a doctor. They are afraid to seek help if anything goes wrong because they are afraid they might be imprisoned, shamed and stigmatised.

One of the interesting facts presented to the committee, of which I was not aware, was the average age of those obtaining abortions. The general perception is that those accessing abortion are young, promiscuous women who are sleeping around and who pop over to England for an abortion because it is easy but that is not the case. The data collected shows that the most common age group accessing the abortion pill were between 30 and 34. The majority, at 63%, are mothers. The second largest category of women accessing abortion were in the their forties. We do not know the challenges and difficulties these women are facing.

One of the most harrowing accounts of the effect of the eighth amendment on Irish citizens was that of Gerry Edwards and Claire Cullen-Delsol, representing Termination for Medical Reasons Ireland. Gerry spoke about his own and his partner's reaction to getting a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality.

It is devastating news to hear. Our hearts are broken and our worlds stop...For those of us who chose to terminate our pregnancies and were forced to travel to lose our babies, we were basically left to our own devices...We had to make our own travel arrangements and decide if we would go by aeroplane or by car or by boat. How do we get from the airport or ferry port to the hospital? Who will travel with us? If we already have children at home, who will look after them? How do we get time off work? Do we have a passport and can we even afford it?

These are the realities. These are the questions facing parents who have had a devastating diagnosis and are grieving. They are told that doctors here cannot help them and that the best they can do is give them a phone number for a clinic in England. Doctors cannot even pass on their medical records to the clinic but must give them to the parents to take with them as they travel.

It is disgraceful that a modern country would leave grieving families in such situations and that women with much-wanted pregnancies do not receive help in their own country.

This country's legal system is quite remarkable. Under the eighth amendment which criminalises abortion, one can be imprisoned for up to 14 years. The thirteenth amendment specifically allows women to travel to seek an abortion in other countries. The fourteenth amendment which allows women to obtain information here on terminations they must travel elsewhere to procure is, as the phrase goes, an Irish solution to an Irish problem. We are quite happy for women to have terminations, but we are not happy for them to be carried out on Irish soil. It is a case of "not in my back yard". How do we reconcile this? How do we think it is satisfactory? What would happen if there was no United Kingdom? I shudder to think what the consequences would be for Irish women if they did not have access to terminations elsewhere.

We should remember that the eighth amendment does not affect all of us equally. There are women who cannot travel. They might not be able to afford to travel or they might be too ill to do so. Some women have mental health issues that mean that they cannot just get on an aeroplane. The eighth amendment has an even more devastating impact for some women. We need to address the situation of women who are left without assistance in this country, including those who take the pill alone in their homes and are afraid because they do not know what the impact will be and do not know if they can go anywhere for help. Many of the women who take early morning flights travel on their own because they are afraid to tell their loved ones where they are going. Some are mothers who have to try to arrange care for their children at home. Those who cannot travel are left here in fear and loneliness and with the shame and stigma we attach to them.

Dr. Brendan O'Shea of the Irish College of General Practitioners outlined to the joint committee how he and his colleagues who provide front-line services for many women with crisis pregnancies dealt with this issue. He gave an example of the scenario that could present at his GP office:

Sandra is 38 years of age and presents to her GP. She has three children but separated from her husband three weeks ago as he had become increasingly abusive towards her and her children. The GP has become increasingly concerned about Sandra's isolation and lack of supports ... Before the GP performs a pregnancy test, she explores Sandra's feelings and asks if she would be happy if she found out that she was pregnant ... [When it is confirmed that she is pregnant] Sandra looks despondent and says she does not want to be pregnant.

It is worth remembering that we are not talking about the happy circumstances in which we hope most women will find themselves. We are talking about the crises in which people find themselves.

The delegates from the Irish College of General Practitioners confirmed at the joint committee that "GPs cannot actually refer to or make an appointment at a clinic in the UK on behalf of a woman who chooses an abortion." They mentioned that while general practitioners "may provide a copy of the patient's medical records to the patient," they cannot transfer those records to the clinic. They clarified that women who returned to Ireland after having an abortion "do not have access to post-abortion services that are available in the country where it was performed" and might be reluctant to present to Irish health services owing to taboo and stigma. This can put them at risk of physical ill health. Medical professionals who are dealing on the front line with women with crisis pregnancies have told us that the legal system, as it stands, presents a threat to the well-being, lives and health of such women. Are we content to allow this to remain the case?

The joint committee went on a journey before it reached the conclusions it reached. Does anybody think that when we were voting, we made our decisions lightly? That is absolutely not the case. We were lobbied heavily throughout the process. Some of us were personally threatened during it, but at the end of the day, we had to make the choice that we felt was right based on the evidence and facts before us. Any suggestion we somehow placed no value at all on the life of the unborn child and did not debate the issue at all is completely incorrect. We discussed it at every opportunity and posed questions on that very basis. We faced up to such difficulties and it was not an easy decision. These are not pleasant situations. There are times when life is neither simple nor straightforward. It gets messy and difficult.

That the mother and the baby can be equal at all times is simply not possible. Where a mother's life or health is at risk and she has children to care for at home, that has to have a bearing. We cannot say a standing, living and breathing woman with children at home is the same as a foetus. She is not. She cannot be the same. Equally, we cannot dismiss the right of the unborn. Both need to be considered. We considered both and still came to the conclusions to which we came. Our laws must adapt and change with our society. Our society is changing. People are listening to women and their struggles. Women have become stronger in making their voices heard and advocating for the health and medical services they know they need. The marriage equality referendum showed us that, as a nation, when required, we had the bravery and compassion to embark on major social change and make our society fairer and more equal. In some ways, technology and medicine have already passed us out. The pill is being delivered by the national postal service to women in their homes. We are a little late to the game. As Dr. Peter Boylan put it at the joint committee, "the genie is out of the bottle." Our laws must catch up to where we are today. Right now, they do not protect women. They do not protect mothers, daughters, sisters and partners. They do not protect me or anybody else in this House. In fact, they directly put lives and health at risk when difficult and tragic circumstances arise. As Dr. Rhona Mahony said at the joint committee, it is very difficult for doctors and consultants to make the call. How does one decide when a woman is on the verge of death? When does a risk to her health translate into a risk to her life? Dr. Mahony's evidence to the committee, as the master of the National Maternity Hospital and a practising consultant with years of experience of working in maternal care, was that it is too difficult to make this call. There are times when what might have started out as a threat to the health of a woman who is okay can within hours become a serious risk to her life, at which stage it may be too late for doctors to act. Across the board in the medical profession, doctors fear that if they make the wrong call, they could be criminalised. They could lose their careers and professions and end up in jail. The same applies to the woman. No doctor acting in good faith to protect the life of a pregnant woman who could be a mother to other children and somebody's partner should ever feel that conflicted when providing medical care for a woman in this country.

It is worth noting that the joint committee made ancillary recommendations. We spoke about the role of sex education and contraception in preventing crisis pregnancies. We will never prevent every such pregnancy. Those who oppose the repeal of the eighth amendment argue that if enough supports were put in place, abortion services would not be needed. We know that is not the case and it is a naive and misleading position to take. We will always need abortion services. We can provide them at home for Irish women, or we can continue to force them to travel or take the pill at home. Abortions will continue to happen, but we can reduce the number of crisis pregnancies. I hope we will do so and think we will. This debate has certainly brought that issue to the fore. We need to be realistic about the real-life issues with which we are dealing. We need to recognise that these services must be provided for Irish women at home in Ireland. We must not force them to travel.

I understand and appreciate that many in this and the other Chamber are feeling uncomfortable about this debate. Some of us have decided. We have come off the fence and know where we stand. We have taken a position. In some ways, that brings us to an easier place. Perhaps we are not being targeted as often now that we have made our decisions. I can appreciate how difficult this debate is for those Deputies and Senators who have not yet decided because the members of the committee have been through this. I urge them to make the right choice for Irish women and families. I do not mean the right choice politically but the right choice to provide the proper health care we need in this country. During the debate ahead I urge everyone to be respectful of the differing views. I will certainly respect them. When somebody takes a view that is in complete opposition to one's own, it is difficult to understand, but we have to be respectful. We have to understand we will never have consensus on this issue, but we can have a respectful and considered debate which I hope will result in the right choice for Irish women.

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