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

It is estimated that there are 100 million missing women in the world at the moment due to gender-related abortion or infanticide. The Labour Party in Britain is currently seeking to outlaw gender-selective abortion. I ask the Minister to support an amendment that would definitively outlaw gender-selective abortion in this country.

It is generally agreed that the minimal necessary neural pathways for pain are in place at approximately 24 weeks' gestation. Many experts now understand that those pathways may be in place prior to 24 weeks' gestation, which would mean that pain can be experienced at that stage. I ask the Minister to make it unlawful for an abortion or any harm to be carried out on an unborn child who can potentially feel pain. We need to deal with this important question.

I would like to refer to one of the most heartbreaking elements of abortion. It happens in most abortion regimes that an abortion is unsuccessfully carried out and the child who survives is seriously injured. In some cases, he or she passes away. It would be humane for the Minister to require the healthcare professionals who are gathered around to attempt to save the life of such a child and make sure he or she is protected into the future. I had the pleasure of meeting an abortion survivor from the US when she came to Ireland. She went through the experience I have described. If a nurse had not removed her from the cold silver dish and helped her at the time, she would not be alive today. I think it would be worthwhile for the Minister to include an amendment to cover such cases. According to a poll carried out by Amárach Research recently, the vast majority of Irish people are in favour of medical intervention in the circumstances I have described.

Information is the key to this issue. In fairness to the British authorities, they are very good at collecting information from their abortion services. Many people on the pro-choice side have been using those statistics for years. I am concerned that we might purposely fail to collect enough information at the required level in this country, perhaps to hide this issue. I suggest that for the sake of the women and children, and for the sake of policymakers, politicians and the general public, it would be wise to ensure all the information that is generated on foot of the Government's plan is collected on an annual basis. We should be able to review that on a regular basis as well.

We often hear people talking about choice and information. I believe really good information is important for informed choices. I suggest that a woman who is considering having an abortion should be offered the possibility of seeing an ultrasound before she proceeds. I am not saying she should be forced in any way to look at an ultrasound, but the option of doing so should be available to her. This should be provided for in the legislation before the House. Approximately 80% of those who participated in the Amárach Research poll said they would support such a provision.

I have to ask the Minister a couple of questions about the Bill. Will the parents of a child who seeks to have an abortion be responsible for deciding whether the abortion is proceeded with? If not, will the child's parents be notified of the decision whether to have an abortion? I know this is a grey area in other elements of medical practice. I want to see where the Minister stands in this regard.

Our previous conversation about whether people voted exactly on the basis of this Bill reminds me that when I spoke to a number of Deputies about this legislation recently, I was interested to find out that two of them did not know it allows for abortion to be available up to 24 weeks. It is worth bearing in mind that there is a lack of knowledge in this Chamber about what is at stake here.

I would like to ask the Minister about the provisions of the Bill with regard to cases of children with life-limiting conditions. The legislation refers to a condition that is "likely" to result in the death of the child within 28 days of birth. What does the word "likely" mean in this context? If we are talking about a chance of 51% or more that the child will not live beyond days, it is a very low bar because it will have a failure rate of approximately 49%. I know of children who confounded the doctors when they were brought to full term. They were fully healthy children even though the doctors had told their parents that they should consider abortion on the basis that the children had life-limiting conditions.

Even though this Bill is coming to pass, it is really important for this country to offer the necessary supports to women who find themselves in really difficult circumstances. The Minister needs to double down on investment in maternity services, perinatal hospice care, rape crisis supports, health services, housing, childcare and equal pay. I remind the House that when a woman and her children were forced to stay overnight in a Garda station earlier this year, Twitter lit up with angry people asking how the woman in question dared to have children she could not afford. Is this how things are going to be? Is this the new Ireland - free abortions but no chance of a roof over one's head?

See this speech in context