Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has said that current legislation enables all women to access abortion services but it does not. There were 367 women who travelled to the UK that we know of but clearly there are many more, and they did not have access to that healthcare in Ireland. It is deeply disappointing and concerning that the Government is determined to review only the operation of the Act rather than providing the changes necessary to prevent further suffering. Could we honestly say we are happy with the fact that women and families who received the worst possible news are being forced to travel to another country for healthcare?

The review of the legislation is a missed opportunity to update our laws in line with best medical practice and the lived experience of families. Regrettably, the lack of action and resolve on this and related issues is clear. The Government has failed to bring forward promised legislation on safe access zones around GP surgeries and hospitals. Instead, the Together for Safety group has, in co-ordination with Senators, sought to progress a Bill where the Government has failed to do so.

There is also the larger context of maternal healthcare in Ireland. We are years, if not decades, away from a patient-centred system in which midwives have a leading role. We have shockingly low rates of home births in Ireland, with an institutional culture of forcing women into maternity hospitals. The Community Midwives Association and the Midwives Association of Ireland have called the HSE ban on water births "non-evidence based, unethical and inequitable". More than 3,000 women annually are hospitalised because of severe pregnancy sickness when a medication that could assist in many cases is unavailable on the drugs payment scheme or medical card. There is also a vastly disproportionate over-representation of ethnic minority women among maternal deaths in Ireland.

All of these matters are connected to how maternal and abortion healthcare are treated in Ireland. An unwillingness to provide the full range of abortion care needed by girls and women is the same unwillingness to provide the full range of properly resourced maternal healthcare. We need change.

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