Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

A referendum had to be wrenched from Ireland's political establishment by a loud and boisterous movement of women, youth and LGBTQ and working-class people, in particular over the previous five years, 2013 to 2018. I agree with the words of my Socialist Party colleague, Ruth Coppinger, one of the foremost advocates for repeal and for abortion rights in this State: the political establishment had to be dragged kicking and screaming into granting a referendum it had resisted for many years.

Now the Government's conservatism is on display again as it attempts to put this Bill into the freezer for 12 months, a sign, in my view, that it intends to delay any progressive legislative change on this issue at least until after the next general election.

The Minister has sitting on his desk a report from Marie O'Shea, whom he commissioned to write a review five years after repeal on how the new arrangements are working out from the point of view of the health of women and pregnant people. She recommends, among other things, an end to the three-day waiting period and the decriminalisation of abortion. The Taoiseach, however, says he is "reluctant" and "uncomfortable" about such changes. I do not care about the Taoiseach's comfort; I care about what is in the best interests of women facing crisis pregnancies. The three-day wait is clearly not in the best interests of pregnant people. It is not a three-day wait to find out if you are pregnant; it is a three-day wait to have access to abortion pills after already deciding you want to terminate the pregnancy. No other group of people in Irish society are told to go away for three days and come back if they want healthcare. No other group of people are told to wait three days for a prescription. It is patronising. It treats women like children. It needs to be ended.

The current legislation provides for a jail sentence of up to 14 years for anyone who assists in the procurement of an abortion for a woman after 12 weeks. That provision creates a serious chill factor for doctors in deciding how to interpret the law. The law allows for an abortion after 12 weeks where the health of the mother is at risk. After all, that is the circumstance in which Savita Halappanavar died in an Irish hospital. The law also allows for abortion after 12 weeks on grounds of fatal foetal anomaly if the foetus were to go on to be unable to survive 28 days after birth. However, doctors are clearly fearful of prescribing abortions for women on either of those grounds. They face the possibility of having to prove in a court of law that the health of the woman was indeed in danger or that the foetus would not have been able to go on to survive 28 days after birth, with both those grounds coming with the threat of a 14-year sentence. Little wonder that the number of women procuring abortions in the Irish health service on health grounds, for example, is more or less similar to what it was before repeal.

As a result of policies such as these, hundreds of Irish women are still travelling to Britain for terminations every year. This is not what nearly 1.5 million people voted for when they voted to repeal the State's anti-abortion laws five years ago. Doctors should be trusted to act in the best interests of their patients. The 14-year jail sentence, that penalty, needs to be scrapped and abortion needs to be completely decriminalised.

It is not acceptable that there is only one GP in Monaghan and only one GP in Longford providing abortion services. The HSE needs to step up to the plate and actively recruit GPs in these areas who are prepared to offer the service. Nor is it acceptable that eight of the State's maternity hospitals do not offer abortion services. Conscientious objection by an individual GP is one thing; conscientious objection by an institution is quite another and is in no circumstances acceptable. The church and religious institutions have stood in the way of women's rights far too long. We need abortion services in every maternity hospital and we need a separation of church and State.

Winning abortion rights up to 12 weeks was a major victory by the repeal movement, but there are real issues with the 12-week cutoff point. In Argentina, where abortion rights were won by a mass social movement after 2018, women have abortion rights up to 14 weeks. In this country the citizens' assembly recommended provision of abortion up to 22 weeks on socio-economic grounds. I am going to be caught for time, but that is an issue I intend to come back to in future debate.

I have heard Government Deputies say they want abortion to be rare. Abortion will never be rare, in my opinion. One woman in three will have an abortion in the course of her lifetime. It is a right and one that will be availed of for a very wide variety of reasons. If, however, Government Deputies want to reduce or to have a chance of reducing the number of abortions in society, the Government should stop placing restrictions on this right and instead focus on the social issues that make many women consider abortion, such as lack of access to contraception, poverty and poor housing conditions. Women should accept no restrictions whatsoever on their rights, least of all from those who defend a social system which places these social burdens onto their backs.

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