Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The measures in this Bill would see Irish abortion rates soar, as the most basic protections and safeguards are stripped away from the legislation. Meanwhile, there remains a chronic lack of supports available to women with unplanned pregnancies. We know the HSE's My Options service, which is touted by the Government, is nothing but a hotline to have an abortion. Women who ring it and ask for information about real, tangible supports, are met with a brick wall. Women who want pregnancy counselling, including a focus on how they could proceed with their pregnancy, are being let down by My Options. There are documented cases of My Options counsellors, when faced with a phone call from a pregnant woman who felt unsure about what to do, advising the woman to make an abortion appointment anyway, even if she later changed her mind. This flies in the face of being non-directive counselling.

There must be an urgent focus on reducing the abortion rate. The referendum which has been mythologised here today was achieved partly on the shallow promise that bringing abortion to Ireland would not see the abortion rate drastically increase. Safe, legal and rare: that was the catchphrase at the time uttered by the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, among others. Even accounting for Irish women who had abortions in Britain and the IFPA's estimated annual total of abortion pills taken in Ireland pre-2019, there has been a 70% increase in the Irish abortion rate since the introduction of abortion services here. We have seen approximately 28,500 babies aborted in Ireland in just four years. This is not just a statistic, but in each case a personal tragedy and a life lost. Some of the pro-abortion groups in this country have shown their true colours from time to time, such as when the abortion rights campaign celebrated 6,700 abortions. Glorifying in the destruction of human life is not something any reasonable person in this country would find appropriate. Despite cloaking the nature of abortion in misleading language, the Act still defines a termination of pregnancy as ending the life of a foetus. Some people in this House have well and truly lost sight of that reality.

The report commissioned by the Government as part of a review into the operation of the Act made sweeping recommendations based on fundamentally flawed evidence and selective findings. For instance, it is the author's view that the three-day waiting period should be abolished in its entirety, as it is without merit. The review draws on a piece of research commissioned by the Government, which interviewed just 58 women, all of whom had abortions. It never crossed the mind of the researcher to interview any women who had availed of the three-day period for reflection, and who opted not to have an abortion. Would that not have occurred to the researcher, in the interest of fairness and balance? If a reviewer just interviews one side from a small sample, we will get a skewed answer. One does not need to be a genius to figure that one out. When it comes to statistics for women who made an initial appointment but did not proceed to the second appointment, the author of the report, inexcusably, ignored HSE evidence, which shows that between 2019 and 2021 approximately 17% of all first appointments made did not result in a second and final appointment. Instead, she cited a non-representative study provided by the pro-abortion group, Start Doctors. In its small sample, it found that just 2% of women did not proceed to a second appointment. How can we take this report seriously when its author ignores official HSE statistics, which were brought to her attention in nearly 3,000 submissions to the public consultation? In spite of that, she relies solely on a fringe study. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that one set of data was selectively emphasised, as it bolstered the outcome she wanted to see, while conflicting data were cast aside.

There are many such faults in the report, too many to detail here. The supporters of this Bill clearly have no interest in respecting the promises that were made to voters in 2018 to encourage them to vote "Yes". They were on the fringe of the "Yes" campaign at the time. Senior Ministers, with whom the responsibility of government still rests, were responsible for persuading a majority to vote "Yes" on the basis of commitments to draft legislation being published well in advance of the referendum. After five years, when the people can no longer have a say over this contentious matter in the form of a referendum, it would be deceptive and undemocratic to tear up those promises and institute an even more extreme abortion regime.

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