Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the centre of this Bill is the protection of life, the protection of the woman. When one looks back at its history one finds this re-emphasised at every turn. In 1992 the Supreme Court found that the Constitution guaranteed a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy where there was a real and substantial risk to her life including the threat of suicide. Since that judgment we have had two referenda and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, all of which reaffirm this right.

To their credit, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have kept the promise made in their programme for Government and commissioned the report of the expert group on the judgment in the case of A, B and C v. Ireland, published last November. It found that legislation and regulations in accordance with the X case would give constitutional, legal and procedurally sound effect to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. Far from being a prescription for so-called abortion on demand this approach will underpin the extremely restrictive nature of the 1992 ruling in the X case. Some people have sought, and will continue to seek, to undermine the need to include suicide. I have listened carefully to those arguments. In many cases personally I find them disrespectful to women and deeply hurtful. The Supreme Court ruled on the issue and stated that where the threat of suicide posed a real and substantial risk to the life of the woman and where no other intervention could save her life then the termination of the pregnancy is lawful. That was the case in 1992 and it is the case today.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines crisis as "a time of intense difficulty or danger". It defines danger as "the possibility of suffering harm or injury". The establishment order of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency defines crisis pregnancy as one "which is neither planned nor desired by the woman concerned, and which represents a personal crisis for her". The reality that we must face is that crisis pregnancies happen every day. Women find themselves in precarious positions. They find themselves in turmoil. Some can accept their pregnancies after the adjustment to their lives, some make alternative arrangements, many women travel to England but there are many who are utterly desperate which is defined as "feeling or showing a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with", so impossible that ending their lives is a reality, often where a combination of factors has pushed them into such a black hole.

The social stigma around being unmarried irks me, as do other facets of Catholic guilt that have borne down very heavily on Irish women across history and seen such issues as the Magdalen laundries, Dr. Neary and symphysiotomy visited upon them. Underlying mental health issues is another factor, as are the dire economic circumstances that we face. These factors, or a combination of all three, or indeed more, are the realities that women face and that have put very many women into this situation. In the A, B and C v. Ireland case, the European Court of Human Rights criticised the inclusion of harsh criminal sanctions in Irish law as a significant chilling factor for women and their doctors. Criminal law can impede access to lawful sexual and reproductive health services information which can include family planning because of the chilling effect it can have on women who are very fearful of public prosecution. Some of these criminal laws perpetuate the stigmatisation and women start to feel discrimination and prejudice when they are accessing lawful health care. The Irish Family Planning Association has reported that women going for counselling on their options in a crisis pregnancy situation are terrified of the possibility of going to jail and they feel like criminals when they try to access basic information. The UN special rapporteur on the right to health stated on his visit to Ireland in December 2012 that "criminal laws and other legal restrictions disempower women, who may be deterred from taking steps to protect their health, in order to avoid liability and out of fear of stigmatization."

Today we are talking about life not health but the situation holds that when culture and the law paints a woman as a criminal or puts a scarlet letter on her when she may not have access to certain services and if she already has underlying mental health problems, she may turn to suicide or other desperate acts. As Senator van Turnhout and some medical professionals have said, no-one claims that abortion is a treatment for suicidal ideation but it may be required to save a woman's life when all other options have been exhausted because ultimately the alternative is a dead woman in these narrow situations. Very often in this House we have lamented the curse of suicide. It may have come up in the context of the economic crisis. Now it seems that if a woman is pregnant and suicidal we are ignoring reality. That is the ostrich situation. It is very clear that most citizens want this legislation although it does not mean that they are "pro-abortion" or in favour of abortion, it is a simple recognition of the fact that in real life situations where a woman's life is at risk there is an expectation that interventions will be made to save that woman where all else has failed. It is difficult for some Members of the Oireachtas to hear that people support this legislation. That is a minority view which is sincerely held and I respect that. This is a democracy.

After 20 years I believe that the democratic will of the people should be reflected in our institutions in our legislation. There has been much talk of the need for Deputies and Senators to vote on the Bill with their conscience. Like Senators van Turnhout and Keane, I vote with my conscience on every Bill. When, for example, I opposed cuts to child benefit because of their impact on family and child poverty I did so with my conscience and when I opposed the imposition of the property tax I did so because of the additional financial hardship it was imposing on people in the local economy. Today, when I speak in support of this Bill I do so because my conscience tells me that where a woman's life is at risk and I have no option but to ensure that medical professionals have the legal clarity that they need to ensure that her life is saved. This debate is not about the right to terminate a pregnancy, it is about the right to life, the right of women to receive whatever medical intervention is required to save our lives, something 41 Members of this House will never have to deal with personally.

Despite many gains over the years we continue to live in a society that fails to treat women equally. We need only look at the Oireachtas, the lack of women and the treatment of women here, to confirm that there is still a long way to go to achieve full equality but what more fundamental right can a person have than for his or her life to be respected, to be saved? We are not opening floodgates. We are preventing the closure of a coffin lid when we protect the life of the woman. This Bill is not perfect and there are sections that I have genuine difficulty in supporting, such as criminalisation and sanctions. Its fundamental purpose, the protection of the life of women during pregnancy is such a basic right that I do not see how people cannot support it and I will give it my full support.