Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I did not intend to speak on the amendment either and I will be brief. This country has a dark and shameful history in its control of women, their health and their reproductive rights. It all comes down to controlling women, their bodies and their reproductive health. It has gone on for a long time and we are still finding out some dark things about our past.

Whether or not it is the intention of those tabling it, the amendment feels like the foregoing. The amendment provides that a woman who presents at her general practitioner, or as Deputy Harty - a doctor - said, a woman who gets in trouble and whose life or health is at serious risk, will be forced to travel to a hospital, undergo multiple diagnoses and, when she says that she does not want to see an ultrasound, she will be forced to sign a form confirming that she has refused to see these forced diagnoses. If the doctor does not do all of that, he or she will go to jail, which is what the amendment states. It is deeply regrettable that we must have a debate about treating women and trying to control them in this way during the debate about this legislation or any debate about legislation.

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