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

The abortion-supporting groups which campaigned for the Bill before the House today know that no harassment is taking place outside GP surgeries or hospitals where abortions are happening. They know that if any harassment were to happen, gardaí already have sufficient powers to deal with such a situation. There is a skyrocketing abortion rate in Ireland and that is a fact. Yet the Government spends its time caving in to the demands of the most extreme elements of the abortion-supporting lobby. On the Minister’s watch, for every seven babies born today, one will have his or her life ended through abortion. This is a national tragedy of epic proportions. So much for safe, legal and rare, which we were told. Is that rare? Women facing an unplanned pregnancy are being kept in the dark about the support available to them should they decide to keep their baby. The Bill before us today is entirely about politics and nothing else. It has nothing whatever to do with protecting women from harassment or intimidation. If it were about safeguarding women, the Government would have adopted an evidence-based approach. Instead, the Minister ignored the advice of An Garda Síochána and conceded to the calls for exclusion zones from pro-abortion activist groups such as Together for Safety. The Bill on exclusion zones does something else that is truly awful; it criminalises help. In 2019, representatives from the group Be Here for Me gave a presentation to the Oireachtas Life and Dignity group in Leinster House. At that briefing Alina Dulgheriu said that “a just and caring society doesn’t criminalise people for offering help to vulnerable mothers.” She told her own story and said:

The day I made my way to the abortion facility was the darkest day my heart has ever known. All I needed was help until I gave birth. A lady and a leaflet. That’s all it took. Right there at the steps of abortion centre. From all that darkness, at last I felt hope, I felt for the first time that my child was wanted, not only by me, but also by complete strangers. For the first time, I felt that I was not walking alone on the day I was meant to end the life within me - my child. I cannot express the joy and how fulfilled I felt as a woman, as a mother, to be given the chance to have my child.

The Minister never met with women like Ms Dulgheriu to hear their stories or the other view point in all this. It is unconscionable how the Minister has misled the public by claiming to engage in the widest possible consultation before making decisions. That is not true. Coercive abortion is a reality in this country. It is a fact. Under this Bill, if a mother intervenes to plead with her young daughter, or the daughter of any age, outside an abortion facility not to give into the pressure from her boyfriend or husband to have an abortion, she would face six-months imprisonment and massive fines, just for trying to protect her daughter and grandchild. What a travesty and attack on natural justice. As well as trampling on basic civil liberties, this Bill is a betrayal of women facing an unplanned pregnancy and their unborn babies. I call on all of my colleagues in this House to do the right thing and to vote against this draconian and deeply unjust Bill.

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