Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am very proud to be a Deputy for the constituency of Cork East, particularly in this Dáil, which will finally bring to a close a shameful period in Irish history whereby women's health was turned into a political battle by the religious right. The eighth amendment was a grievous mistake, cooked up by a cabal of activists intent on holding back the social progress of this island. The same people opposed divorce, decriminalisation of homosexuality and, most recently, marriage equality. The people will no longer tolerate a backward, closed-minded Ireland. This referendum gives them another chance to push our nation forward. I am confident that they will enthusiastically accept this opportunity.

I commend the work of the Citizens' Assembly and the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, both of which worked diligently and fairly to develop a response to the obvious issues that arose from the enshrinement of the eighth amendment in the Constitution 35 years ago.

It is a great pity that some of those who refused to engage properly sought to use their work to grandstand and protest rather than to advance understanding or to encourage discussion. They did this clearly as they felt they could not adequately address the weight of medical, psychiatric and legal evidence against the maintaining of the amendment. This was an insult to the public, and also to the democratic institutions of the State. It was very disappointing that some would try to dismiss the hard work of the committee and its members. I am proud of the three members of the committee from my own party who took part, and I stand by their conclusions. I also want to commend the Minister and the Government for its work in this regard. Many previous Governments have at best ignored the issues, while others have actively sought to limit further the rights of women to health care and to tie the hands of their doctors. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and I do not agree all the time, but his recent thoughtful and clear comments were very much appreciated, and I give credit where it is due.

We deserve no great applause for finally acting on this matter, but I am very glad that we have, and am also glad for those who have put their heads above the parapet in the last few years. However, I want to pay tribute to the real heroes. They are the women up and down this island who have struggled tirelessly before and since 1983 to realise a society where women are trusted and respected. The eighth amendment has cost lives and impacted on the health and comfort of countless women. We will never truly know the scale of the damage it has done over the 35 years, but much of the medical evidence we have heard, from experts in their respective fields, lays bare the many pitfalls it set for doctors and the women they cared for. For many years politicians and the media chose to ignore these realities and the toll it had on the women of Ireland. Those days are over, thankfully. We know the stories of the women who, for 35 years, were victimised by this law.

The question that we as a nation are now being asked is not what we think of abortion or what our personal or philosophical opinions about the beginning of life are. It is simply, do we trust women? Do we trust women and their doctors? In a perfect world there would be no rape, no unwanted pregnancies, no physical or psychological threat from pregnancies and no fatal foetal abnormalities, and so there would be no abortion. We do not live in that world, however. We make things so much worse by pretending we do and digging our heads into the sand. We must decide whether the lives of the living, breathing women deserve the full medical protection afforded to everyone else in our society, or if the pregnancy somehow limits their right to health care. There is no perfect conclusion to this question, but we have seen the damage that occurs when we decide that a pregnant woman is not deserving of this right to health care and that her doctor's hands are tied. I never want to see another case like those of Sheila Hodgers, Ann Lovett, Savita Halappanavar, or those of many nameless women, such as Ms X, a child pregnant due to rape, or Ms Y, who refused food in protest and was operated on against her will. There is only one way to deal with this very difficult and tragic situation, and that is to repeal the eighth amendment and to finally give women and doctors the ability to make the medical decisions appropriate to the care they desire. I urge people to trust women and to repeal the eighth.

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