Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----to house the 4,000 children who are homeless. According to a recent poll by Amárach Research, voters are opposed to taxpayer-funded abortions, including 44% of "Yes" voters. It is no wonder.

The Minister campaigned for this. He stated that it was about choice. Now he is looking to take choice away from doctors and apply a penalty - I am not sure whether it will be a criminal penalty - if they do not fulfil their requirements under this legislation. The Bill compels doctors who do not want to perform abortions to participate in a process to make arrangements for abortions to happen. Where is the choice for doctors not to participate? Doctors are not trained or equipped to carry out this. Most get into the profession to save lives, not end them. Interestingly, the Oireachtas committee on the eighth heard evidence that the vast majority of abortions were for socioeconomic reasons and that only a small minority were for medical reasons. Despite this, the Minister is forcing doctors and other healthcare workers to participate. Anyone who is listening to this debate should think about it. Imagine if the Minister said that someone's office would be forcibly turned into an abortion clinic or be used to facilitate arrangements for abortions. Most people listening to this debate would be horrified, but that is exactly what is happening in the medical profession. It is a serious flaw in the legislation. God knows that the GP system is already stuffed and at breaking point. The Minister is telling those who oppose this legislation to leave the profession or to do what they are told. It will bring hundreds of law-abiding doctors into conflict with the State. According to the Amárach Research poll, the majority of adults were opposed to this. This element of the Bill will come a cropper in the Supreme Court as well, so I advise the Minister to do the right thing.

I will be proposing a number of amendments on Committee Stage in an effort to remove some of the most damaging elements of the Bill. The Minister made a number of statements during the campaign that should be translated into definitive legislative safeguards. One of my main difficulties with abortion is that it impacts minorities far more than others. If someone is female, has a disability, is from an ethnic background or is poor, that person is far more likely to be aborted.

When the Minister was campaigning for this Bill, he said that nobody would be allowed to have an abortion in this country on the basis of disability. On that basis, I ask him to support a definitive amendment to prevent abortion in the case of disability. I suggest we should translate the Minister's pre-referendum promise into an amendment.

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