Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief because Deputy Clare Daly covered most of the points I would like to have made. This is one of the most important parts of the debate we will have tonight. We cannot ignore the World Health Organization's warning of what keeping criminalisation in a Bill on women's health and abortion can impose on doctors or others, such as a sister or a mother.

If a daughter is approaching the 11th or 12th week and cannot access a doctor because of a potential conscientious objection and things are getting quite difficult, her mother might access a website and seek an abortion pill. That woman, or a father, could then be criminalised and jailed for 14 years.

I will read into the record what the other amendments propose. Amendment No. 6 states:

In page 7, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following:“(4) Subsections (1) and (2) shall not apply to a medical practitioner acting in good faith.”.

Amendment No. 7 states:

In page 7, line 3, to delete “It” and substitute “Save in the case where a person is acting with explicit instruction from the pregnant woman, it”.

Amendment No. 8 states:

In page 7, line 7, to delete “for a term not exceeding 14 years” and substitute “for a term proportionate to the scale of the offence”.

Amendment No. 9 states:

In page 7, line 7, to delete “for a term not exceeding 14 years”.

As Deputy Clare Daly stated, we submitted these amendments on the basis that amendment No. 5 would fall. However, these four amendments will fall if amendment No. 5 is accepted. I appeal to our colleagues in the Seanad to carry these amendments when the Bill is sent back there and to argue for them to be included in the new section the Minister will create. In the meantime, I ask the Minister to take what we have said on board. The joint committee made this point very clearly with regard to criminalisation. It was probably the issue that was most debated in the committee. Leaving this provision in place will damage the Bill rather than enhance the fact that women will be able to access women's healthcare in a way they have never been able to previously in the history of this country. Removing that section would enhance the Bill and I appeal to the Minister to do that.

See this speech in context