Results 4,821-4,840 of 7,583 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: There is a very serious human dignity issue here.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: That is not what is in the legislation.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: I would like to speak to amendment No. 14. First, I agree with Senator Crown that this debate should be extended. I would be very happy to have a gentleman's or gentlewoman's agreement that we would make three-minute speeches as a maximum. However, we should at least do this most important of issues-----

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: No, let us have the Leader in the House to make an arrangement.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: I want to speak to the amendment because it has everything to do with evidence-based treatment. Like my friend and colleague, Senator Crown, I believe in evidence-based treatment. If evidence-based treatment was what we were legislating for, there would not be a problem. Let us look at the reality, however. The reality is that amendment No. 14, which I have proposed, changes the test...

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: I listened to the authorities very carefully, and I listened to Senator Crown's authority and have shown it great respect. However, I want to make the point that in regard to what is evidence-based medicine, this is our job, as legislators. Senator Gilroy, in a rather convoluted presentation, seemed not to grasp the fundamental idea-----

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: -----that opposition to this legislation is not based on evidence, it is based on the lack of evidence that abortion is an appropriate treatment or response to a situation where a threat of suicide is deemed to constitute a risk to life.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: What we do know is that abortion does not in any way improve mental health outcomes for women and is associated with a low to moderate risk of negative mental health sequelae in some women. It has been pointed out that one could not do the kind of study that would allow one to determine exactly whether, in situations where a person presented as suicidal, an abortion would help or hinder the...

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: I certainly am not. I am responding to the amendment. The issue arose on Second Stage and Committee Stage. Senator Crown's concerns in particular deserve a response. He is right in saying we must have evidence-based medicine. We do not have the requirement of evidence-based medicine here. Even though we are being told, on the one hand, it is not medical, the Chief Medical Officer, Dr....

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: As to the question of whether rogue doctors exist and whether we should be legislating to prevent, not the collusion of three doctors, but of two psychiatrists, because the obstetrician will not be in a position to gainsay the certification of the psychiatrists that there is real and substantial risk-----

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: It is a two-doctor situation. The third doctor is involved at the level of the mechanics, quite frankly. In response to the suggestion that there might be rogue doctors out there, to use that phrase, I can only quote what Ann Furedi, who is involved in the provision of abortion in Britain, said in the comparable situation of mental health in Britain, which provides the grounds for the vast...

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: -----that in most of those situations, there is no mental health challenge at all and yet the thing is routinely abused.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: It is comparable to this extent, namely, it is much easier to prove the existence of a mental health situation than it is to prove the reality that a threat of suicide might actually lead to the act of suicide.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: It is no argument for Senator Gilroy to say we are not respecting mental health. This is all sham argumentation and bogus blustering by Senator Gilroy. We had in the House Professor Kevin Malone, a leading suicide prevention expert, perhaps the leading one. He warned about the possible impact of this legislation in terms of negative attitudes around suicide in the country, in terms of it...

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: No, we have not.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: We certainly did not agree to it in the terms described by the Senator.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: The Senator should not mislead the House.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: If he reads his garbled presentation-----

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: It is not a healthy pregnancy.

Seanad: Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Jul 2013)

Rónán Mullen: I thank the Minister of State for his response. I assure him that this is a substantive amendment which would make the following substantive difference. There would be absolutely no doubt that in a pre-viable situation the unborn child's life would be ended. However, in a situation at viability onwards, it would make clear that the intervention was not designed to take the life of the child...