Dáil debates

Tuesday, 4 December 2018

Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Report Stage (Resumed)

 

9:40 pm

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----than it does to Ireland in this day and age. I listened really carefully for all of last week. I did not speak at all in order to listen very carefully to the comments made by the 20 or so Deputies who have consistently sought to oppose the legislation, as their democratic right. I do not know how they thought it out, but this kind of language strikes me as being from the school of the deep south of the United States, where in various states there is a very active and continuous attempt to frustrate any woman trying to avail of services concerning pregnancy, either within her own state or by crossing state lines.

I also want to ask about the tone of this amendment. This is really designed to extract information from women that will shame them. We all know people who have unfortunately suffered multiple miscarriages and in some cases have never been able to give birth to a live baby. I know a lot of people like that. Ironically, most of the people I meet nowadays in Ireland with difficulties around pregnancy have trouble becoming pregnant and having a baby they very much want. We need to cop on to where Ireland is at the moment. Members know the statistics. Most women giving birth in Ireland are in their 30s or older, and most of the babies are very much wanted. I do not see why one must attempt to set up a structure to shame all women.

The language of this amendment is straight out of an Ireland of a long time ago. I assume this amendment was written by some clever lawyer, rather than the Deputies here. We all use lawyers to help us with the drafting of amendments. Are these drafters the successors of the people who locked women in Magdalen laundries and put their children in orphanages and industrial schools? It took a very long time before this House even addressed those issues. Are we really using that same language tonight? Why? Why do we feel compelled to use it? This is a difficult, personal and private issue. Do not attempt to use this Bill as a mechanism to shame women and to shame and frighten doctors.

We have just got several multiple-page amendments, which seem to have a parallel purpose, namely, to frighten and shame doctors who seek to provide these services. One needs to have regard to what the people voted for. This particular Bill amendment will not do anyone in Ireland any good.

Listening to the debate last week, I never once heard proposals from any of the Deputies to provide for serious high-quality information to young people on how to avoid becoming pregnant and how to positively manage their fertility in order that, hopefully, they would never need to have recourse to termination. Neither did I hear whether the Deputies wanted, for instance, to have education for young men in order that they would have a sense of their responsibility in supporting their partners in planning in such a way that any pregnancy that occurred would be wanted. That is what women all over the world have done since the right to control fertility via birth control information was introduced more than 100 years ago. We are celebrating 100 years of women having the vote. That period was also the time when the biggest conversations began about birth control and information being available to women. I plead with the Deputies involved that they might be better off simply withdrawing this amendment because it certainly is out of kilter with the respect shown by both sides during the debate and with the way the people of Ireland voted.

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