Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am saddened and shocked - we all are. We said all along - and I repeated it earlier - that we accept totally where an intervention has to be made in an emergency in terms of anything that would affect the health or the life of the mother. The Minister does not have to pick up on that. That is quite clear and understood by all of us.

Some abortion advocates claim that the unborn child cannot feel pain until the third trimester. However, that claim is contradicted by the modern evidence to which, increasingly, the Minister does not want to listen. There is growing scientific evidence from around the world that babies in the womb feel pain before 20 weeks. Anaesthetic and pain relief for babies undergoing surgery in the womb is generally recommended and has been called for in late-term abortions. Some say that should be done from as early as 18 weeks' gestation. Surgeons recognise unborn babies as patients, yet the Minister tells us that the reason he is refusing to accept this amendment is that we might be interfering with that. Surgeons understand this issue. All the people in labour wards understand it. We are not trying to be cruel. I did not want to say it but Deputy Fitzpatrick said that if there was a dog, a pup or a kitten lying on the street, we would lift it up and mind it by providing warmth, pain relief or whatever. It would be horrific and unnecessary for unborn children to suffer needlessly during an abortion.

To prevent that, this amendment should be accepted without any difficulty. It is a clear duty of compassionate and humane doctors to act on the precautionary principle of prevention of pain where there is a risk that it may be experienced. This amendment does not prohibit abortion where the baby can feel pain; it merely requires the administration of pain relief. It is the most humane request in the world and the Minister has set his face against it. I am shocked.

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