Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on this very important but sensitive legislation. It is fair to say a ten minute contribution in no way allows a Member to discuss the full range of matters before us, but I trust that in the normal tradition of the Seanad, our Committee Stage amendments and discussion will allow us the scope and latitude this most serious topic deserves.

For many months, particularly the past 12 months, this House has focused on a very regular basis on the subject of abortion and abortion law. During these discussions there has been much robust debate and argument and many of us have sometimes been a little politically rough in our choice of language. I say to my friends and colleagues in the Labour Party, particularly Senator Ivana Bacik with whom I have clashed on this subject on many occasions, that this is in the course of normal politics. I also say to Senator Ivana Bacik and her colleagues that on this issue and perhaps many more they are my political opponents, but they are most certainly not my political enemies. I hope we will work together in a constructive way on many more political matters.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Dinny McGinley, although I am not sure how fervently he wishes to be here to listen to this debate. Most of my Fine Gael colleagues would have to concede that we did not expect to come to a place in our political lives where our party, leading the Government, would bring before us abortion legislation, albeit limited. We can play with words and I suppose that traditionally one of the great fallacies of Irish politics and one of the reasons we, as a society, so often find ourselves in difficult places is that we try to remove from reality what is before us.

We are debating legislation to provide for abortion. It cannot be argued otherwise. It goes against the very fabric of my party and what we said before and during the general election campaign. It does not stand up to scrutiny to say this legislation is the result of the programme for Government. I say this once again because it is rather disturbing to hear Minister after Minister time and again say this was a commitment in the programme for Government. The programme for Government committed to the setting up of an expert group to look at a range of solutions. Political scholars, not in the distant future but in the near future, will begin to examine the make-up of the expert group, its terms of reference and the fact that its hands were tied. This legislation was literally a done political deal. Last week on "Prime Time" Senator Ivana Bacik was very fair and honest when she said this was happening because the Labour Party was in government. The Fine Gael side of the House knows that if there was a Fine Gael majority, we would not be dealing with this legislation. Some people ask why it has taken so long, while others say we have ignored the courts and judgments in the past 20 years, but, as we heard at the hearings from academics, scholars and legal people on both sides of the argument, there never was, nor is there, an obligation on the Government to proceed in this fashion.

The most interesting thing about the hearings, which many of us attended over the course of two weeks, was that we could all readily agree that our hospital and health professionals were people of extraordinary skill, courage and commitment. Every one of them, when asked directly by me and others if they had ever been hindered in taking whatever steps were necessary to save the mothers of Ireland in our maternity wards, said "No." It is a pity we have ignored that. Many of those experts warned us that what they did not want was to have to bring a new book of law into their hospitals. They were looking for clarification, guidelines and regulations. They wanted us to ensure they could take whatever medical steps were necessary, but we are going about the solution in a very roundabout fashion.

I am sure that when the Government took the decision - it was probably taken when the programme for Government was being signed - to introduce this, albeit limited, abortion legislation, public relations people started to work on the language required to sell the message. Mantras emerged with depressing frequency among some of the witnesses before the Oireachtas joint committee, some of the Ministers and some of the supporters of the legislation on the Government benches. We hear the phrase that it is all about saving women's lives. Every citizen, not just every Member of this Parliament, believes fervently and absolutely in saving women's lives. Surely this is at the core of health policy in this country. Every doctor, nurse, consultant, man, woman and child fully supports the need to do everything possible to save women's lives.

We hear the phrase that this is not new legislation, that it simply codifies the law. Has it ever been the case in this republic that we have spent 12 months holding hearings and having pre-legislative discussions simply to codify the law? This is a change in the law and there is no point saying otherwise.

We are also told, as part of the public relations mantra, that it is a question of no new rules or laws. Again, I contend that is simply public relations spin. We will deal with this more substantially on Committee Stage.

I refer to the core of the difficulty in which some of us find ourselves politically and which will begin to seriously divide politics and Irish society once people reflect further on the passing of this legislation - section 9 which contains the suicide clause. I am not surprised that it is only in the past ten to 15 days that the public has tuned into what is at the core of the Bill, namely, the suicide clause which marks the difference between good and bad medical practice and which will, in my humble uneducated view, open the door to abuse of this law. It will force Irish medics to do what they have not done before, that is, practice medicine without science. If we introduced another health care provision or if we were to talk about a new treatment for cancer, heart problems or arthritis which all of the experts said was not a treatment and might even be dangerous, I do not think the Minister would even get to finish his Second Stage speech before he or she would be laughed out of the Oireachtas, yet that is what we are doing in section 9. We are enshrining in Irish law something which we know to be, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, very dangerous. I am sure we will have a debate on Committee Stage on the constitutionality or otherwise of and the obligation of dealing with what people call the suicide clause.

I listened with interest and empathy to Senator Averil Power who rightly warned us to tread carefully in the area of mental health and suicide. Suicide and the threat of it present a genuine problem on the island. However, in attempting to resolve the issue - the dreadfully painful psychological problems and fear and anguish of pregnant women with suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts - surely we should be able to aspire to a better solution than simply offering abortion. We speak about the need for women to be at the core of this legislation and how right is that argument. However, I hope every Member of this and the other House has a better ambition for the future of Irish women than simply abortion.

When I look across the globe at countries which have so-called liberal abortion laws, including the United States, Britain and most of the countries in Europe, are the women of these countries in a so-called better place medically or from a health perspective than the women of this country?

I think not.

The legislation will obviously be passed by the force of numbers. I hope we will move quickly and with a degree of unity to attempting to tackle genuinely the problem of the 4,000 or 5,000 Irish women who go to Britain for abortions every year. That is the real tragedy. Many women wanted to come to the committee hearings here to tell their stories. As it was an uncomfortable tale, they were not allowed. We must not talk about punishing these people or cast them as lesser beings. These women need our absolute support and encouragement. We need a national conversation as to why we tell 4,000 Irish people that abortion is a better cure than having their baby, being supported and obtaining the services they need to help them make a choice which is difficult in the short term but offers lifelong rewards. I hope that when the debate has concluded with all of its political ramifications, we move on to dealing with the problem faced on a daily and weekly basis by women in this country who fear their pregnancy will ruin their lives. If they had the scope, space and support, they would take a different route and find that life offers much better possibilities.

Those are my initial observations. I am grateful for the flexibility and look forward to Committee Stage during which we will focus on the legislation in more detail and, in particular, on section 9, which represents a bridge too far.