Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan and thank her for her speech. I agreed with much of it. I take the opportunity to thank Senator Quinn for seconding the motion and Senators Leyden, Mullins, Conway, Hayden, Noone, Bradford, Keane, O'Donovan and Healy Eames for their speeches. I pay particular tribute to Senator Healy Eames. I found her speech particularly moving and it shows yet again the wealth of experience of members of the Seanad. It is particularly generous when people chose to speak from personal experience and to reason from it, as is right and proper. I note also the support from Senators on the Government side on this issue. I take seriously their request that I withdraw this motion. I do not feel I can do so, as things stand but I have communicated indirectly to the deputy Leader that I will be very happy if the Government proposes an amendment to the Order of Business to allow us to return to the matter in two weeks and debate it for another 30 minutes and give us time to come up with an agreed motion. There is a real appetite for it on the Government side. Otherwise, the amendment and the motion will be put to the House this evening. I am in the hands of the deputy Leader.

I will not try to traverse all the points made but will address some of them. I would be very happy to incorporate Senator Cáit Keane's desire to include the issue of gender based sex selection. I do not think it captures all the issue, but it would be a welcome addition. It is important that we include the issue of selective abortion which goes on at a later stage. Selection would generally tend to refer to IVF related selection, where embryos are selected out on the basis of a disability or other criterion. In this case, we have the problem of embryos being selected out on the basis of gender. We should avoid euphemistic language in using the word selection when we are talking about the elimination of human life. Senator Bacik among others pointed to the emergence of a small bit of good news in some countries, such as South Korea but, it must be said that one does not gain progress on these issues unless one keeps the pressure on the culprit countries. I point out that it would misrepresent my motion if the Government suggested that there was only a reference to China and India. The motion refers to counties such as China and India. I remind the Government that it often and rightly points to countries where there are human rights abuses of another kind. I think of Senator Norris and others rightly condemning Uganda's proposed legislation last year which would apply the death penalty to homosexual persons. On that point, I think the Government went looking in the drawer of crazy and bizarre rebuttal arguments when it comes up with the notion that the term gendercide is somehow unclear. I wonder if Senator Bacik has a problem with the use of the term "homophobia". it seems to imply a fear of men but I do not think that is what it means. There is a commonly accepted meaning and when newspapers and magazines such as The Economist and others can use the term gendercide, I do not see why the Government cannot. It is not an argument that the term is not fully in use in mainstream human rights and development discourse. That line suggests that the Government is always looking over its shoulder to see if there is some great body internationally that will allow us to use a certain term. Everybody knows what gendercide means. It is the elimination of girl children, whether before or after birth. I have defined the problem in the motion, so that there could be no misunderstanding about it, were the Government to accept it.

Senator Bacik rightly raised the question of education and gender equality. In many ways she went off the point of the motion, but she did make good points, which are relevant to the issue. I would have been delighted and would have had no problem in accepting a Government amendment which sought to add some of those considerations. To try to weasel out of the use of references to sex selective abortion and to focus only on female infanticide which relates to the post-birth situation is to miss the point of the motion. The Senator points to the importance of education but I remind her that it is in societies where people are highly educated, among the middle classes in India and the like, that this continues to be a major problem. Education does not get to the core of the issue.

Sadly the Chinese government backed away from a law that would have prohibited abortion on gender grounds. Senator Bacik knows that and that is the reason she did not refer to China. The Senator also should have referred to the fact that the Indian law is largely under used. That is the reason the Government should keep up the pressure on China and India as culprits. I recognise the sincerity of the Senator's convictions - even if I think she is quite wrong-headed on this issue. I thank her for speaking from her convictions as she always does.

I will be very happy to withdraw the motion, if there is an amendment to the Order of Business, as I have proposed. If there is not, in justice to the 160 million women who have gone missing, I have no other option but to put the motion to a vote this evening unless the Government proposes to allow time to reach an amicable solution and agree an alternative wording.