Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

4 o’clock

I note from the Taoiseach's reports that he spends a lot of time at meetings and travelling to visit various delegations and discussing the horror, as he described it, of the war in Ukraine and the extraordinary inhumanity being imposed by Russian forces on the people of Ukraine. I ask him to perform a very simple act of solidarity that would go a long way towards alleviating that horror. There are tens of thousands of Ukrainian people living in Poland, having fled Ukraine since the start of the war. Many are women who have been raped by Russian soldiers as part of the war effort. Rape is always used as a weapon in war. As a result, many of them end up pregnant. Under current Polish legislation, those who find themselves pregnant as a result of rape and who wish to seek an abortion have to go to court to prove they have been raped. That law is being applied to those Ukrainian women who have been raped by members of the Russian army or the other forces attacking them. They are being cruelly treated in being told they must also prove they are pregnant as a result of rape before they can access abortion. That is inhuman and cruel. There will be an amendment by The Left party before the parliament next week to lift that restriction and to allow Ukrainian women access to abortion. Access for all is hugely important. Will the Taoiseach support the amendment by The Left party and make it clear that he considers it an abomination that women who have been raped in a war cannot access abortion?

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