Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I listened with consideration to the comments made by the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, this morning. As a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, I am particularly interested in this issue and have made my views well known. I would like to take this opportunity to address the Government's current plans. I believe today to be a very sad day indeed. No matter how we try to describe what we are doing today, abortion involves the ending of a human life and removing the eighth amendment will lead to more abortions taking place and more babies losing their lives. I believe that our role as legislators is never to promote or campaign for laws that would end human lives. The debates we have in this House should be about laws that are intended to improve lives and protect the vulnerable.

At meetings of the Oireachtas committee, there was a real denial of the reality throughout the country. No women were invited who could talk about how their abortion negatively affected their lives. No families were invited to talk about the children who are alive today thanks to the eighth amendment. No families were invited to talk about the children they adopted as a life-saving alternative to abortion. If the committee was not prepared to invite these families, then we cannot in all honesty sit here and say that we have acknowledged the reality of what is actually happening in Ireland today. Instead, we have only looked at one side of the debate and I must take issue with the Minister on this point. We have buried our heads in the sand when it comes to looking at all of the good things that the eighth amendment has done for Irish society.

A few weeks ago, a group of volunteers visited my home town of Dundalk as part of the "Lives Saved" tour. They were there to highlight the number of people who are alive in the Louth region thanks to the eighth amendment - an estimated 2,900 people. These are people who are walking around the streets of Louth, going to school or college, building lives of their own. They are not invisible statistics but they and their families have been invisible in the debate so far. These are families where a woman found herself unexpectedly pregnant and initially panicked and considered abortion. In a country like the UK where one in five pregnancies ends in abortion, this initial panic usually brings a woman to the door of an abortion clinic where the life of her unborn baby is ended but in Ireland, things have been different. Women who have faced unplanned pregnancies have the space and time to think about their situation. They get support, find help and are encouraged by family members so they do not need to end the lives of their babies. It is these kinds of situations that make up those 2,900 people in my home county of Louth and all over Ireland as well. These people are alive because of the eighth amendment but their stories are not being listened to. They were not even allowed to appear before the Oireachtas committee and I do not understand why they do not seem to matter to so many people who want to stand up here and talk about the eighth amendment.

I have listened to the Minister talking about improving supports for women and their babies but it is strange to be discussing them during this debate. How can we be realistic about providing supports on the one hand while on the other we are saying that it is okay to end the life of a baby? This is what it boils down to. Abortion ends the life of a baby. The unborn baby is not a clump of cells and we need to be honest about that. The baby’s heart starts beating at just three weeks in the womb. He or she has eyes, a nose, mouth, tongue and eye lids at just six weeks. The baby’s organs are developing at eight weeks and at 12 weeks the baby can suck his or her thumb. Just think about that for a second. We call ourselves a democracy but we are spending hours today discussing a law that would end the life of a baby at 12 weeks when that baby can suck his or her thumb. This is not democratic. This is not compassion or kindness. That is what this law would do and I am not happy with that.

I believe that there is something far better that we can do for women and their babies. We could look at adoption. This is something which is life saving and provides a way for women to avoid abortion even if they do not feel that they can then go on and look after their baby as he or she grows up. We all know someone who has been adopted. We know the joy and happiness that it can bring to the families involved. Adoption gives new hope to so many people but when I attempted to discuss it at the Oireachtas committee, there was no interest in going down that road as a life-saving alternative to abortion. By all means let us improve supports for families but let us not pretend that today is about anything other than ending the lives of babies. If we go ahead and remove the eighth amendment, we know that vulnerable people will be targeted. We only have to look to the UK, where 90% of babies diagnosed with Downs syndrome in the womb are aborted. Again, some people do not want to talk about this but we have a duty to talk about it. As legislators, we have a duty to children diagnosed with disabilities just the same as to everyone else. We need to look at how the laws that we introduce will affect those babies. When we look abroad, it is a very worrying situation. At the moment, the eighth amendment protects these children. If we remove it, they will be left with no protection under our laws.

I have been very honest about how I feel about this issue. I listened to all of the hearings during the Oireachtas committee sessions but I was not convinced by those who made the case for repeal of the eighth amendment. Having looked at all of the evidence, I believe that the eighth amendment has contributed hugely to Irish society. People are walking around Ireland today thanks to these few lines in the Constitution. It has protected women and their babies while at the same time ensured that doctors in Ireland have been able to provide an excellent standard of care for women while they are pregnant. Removing the eighth amendment would have a tragic effect on our country. It would lead to more abortions taking place. This would mean that more babies would lose their lives and more women would suffer from the loss of their baby and the other negative effects of abortion. Women and their babies deserve far better than abortion. They deserve a proper discussion of how to provide real supports that will improve their lives but these supports should not be set beside the removal of legal protection for unborn babies. As legislators we have a responsibility to look after everyone living in Ireland. The way to do that is to keep the eighth amendment and work to improve supports for women and their families. Anything else would lead to the loss of human lives. We can and must do better than this. I will be supporting keeping the eighth amendment.

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