Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I always feel distinctly uncomfortable when we are discussing these issues in the House because they should not be discussed here. They should never have been discussed in here because our considerations, our agonising, our viewpoints, our debates and our considerations are being had not over our own lives but over other people's lives, other women's lives. I do not think we have now, or have ever had, the right to agonise over the lives, bodies and futures of other people, other women, but that is what has happened. That is why I still feel uncomfortable, even now. I just want the referendum and I think that is what people out there want.

We just want the referendum so it will no longer be the case that church, State, politicians or anybody else can poke their noses into the private business of women and are given the right to interfere with the lives, the futures, the bodies or the medical treatment of women. That is what we have at present and we are still debating to what extent should the State retain the right to tell women what to do. That debate, tragically, is not over. Even with the expressions of support for the notion that women should make their own decisions, when we actually look at the details of what we are going to be considering after we repeal the eighth, there will still be a debate about up to what point will women have the right to decide their own lives. Will it be 12 weeks or 22 weeks? Will there be certain conditions where women have the right to decide but other conditions where they do not have the right to decide? At the moment, that looks the most likely outcome, even from people who are saying the past was unacceptable, and that it was wrong that church and State should dictate to women, criminalise them, stigmatise them and force them out of the country under a shadow of shame, criminality and stigma, the 170,000 women who have been driven out of this country under those clouds, with all the suffering, the hardship and the trauma they had to endure for those years because certain people believed they had the right to dictate to women about their lives, their futures and their bodies.

Even if we repealed the eighth amendment, it is far from clear what the attitude of the people in here, who should not have the right to decide but tragically do, would be as regards the conditions under which women would be allowed to decide. Our position has always been clear - only women have the right to decide. Let them do so. Trust women to decide their own lives and their own futures. Let them decide what health care and procedures they can have and whether to have children. Let us support women in those choices.

Repealing the eighth amendment is the first thing that we must do and nothing should be allowed to delay that, given the terrible hardship, suffering and stigma it has imposed on women. Even after that, however, those who are calling for repeal might still decide that women should not be allowed a choice after 12 weeks. While allowing women to decide up to 12 weeks without having to give any reason or explanation would be a considerable step forward, the proposal appears to be that, beyond 12 weeks, we will be allowed to tell them what to do with their lives and what medical procedures they can have. That is wrong. We cannot say that we will let women decide and trust them or that we have mistreated women in the past and then say that the major change will only be to allow them to decide up to 12 weeks, after which all sorts of conditions would apply and other people and laws would decide whether they had a choice.

This is not an ideological or left-wing political position. The only morally supportable position is one of allowing women the right to have access to abortion, if that is what they decide, as soon as possible and as late as necessary. Anything else is other people telling women what to do.

The shameful and dark history of what that has meant is part of an architecture of oppression of women. The flip side of the eighth amendment coin is the same logic that informed the Magdalen laundries, Bethany Home and persecution by the State of women who had children outside the conventions or rules of the Roman Catholic Church. The hypocrisy of many of those on the so-called pro-life side enrages me. Not only have they fought for the right to tell a woman she has to go through with a pregnancy regardless of her circumstances or wishes, but they also persecuted women who actually had children. They imprisoned and abused them. They did not support them. Instead, they stigmatised single mothers and people who had children outside wedlock. It is a dark and shameful history. The only way that we can break from it is by letting women decide. Only they can decide their own futures.

If we want to support women further, we should support their right to have children. An important part of the debate, although one in respect of which the committee came down on the wrong side, is the issue of social and economic grounds. Even though the Citizens' Assembly accepted that social and economic grounds were a legitimate reason for people not to continue with a pregnancy, the all-party committee did not agree. That is wrong. We live in a society in which, because it does not guarantee that people will not have to live in poverty, many do not know whether they will have a roof over their heads or be able to afford child care. The State wants the right to tell them to go ahead with a pregnancy and have a child even though it refuses to provide the supports that would guarantee that child a roof overhead, proper health care and everything else that is needed to raise children. There is a deep hypocrisy in that. I wish that those who still believe they have the right to dictate to women would be more active in fighting for the things that support women who choose to have children while also respectful of the rights of others to access abortion because of economic or health reasons, the circumstances in which they got pregnant, tragic cases of fatal foetal abnormality or so on. Incredibly, they instead believe that they can tell women what they can and cannot do and try to force them to continue with their pregnancies. It is unconscionable.

While I am glad that we have finally reached the point of possibly getting the eighth amendment out of the Constitution, thereby allowing us to at least put that dark chapter behind us, the issue does not end there. Every Deputy needs to consider the decisions that we will have to make after repeal. In particular, do we really mean it when we say that none of us has the right to impose or decide the futures and lives of women? If we do, then we have no right to impose restrictions, rules and limits on when that right can be vindicated.

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