Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased that Senator O'Donnell was not browbeating the patient. I did not for one moment suggest that she would have been doing so. It is just that this is such an emotive issue and I know that opinions are very strongly held on all sides. There have been occasions when I felt like screaming and I am trying very hard to restrain myself, because I think everybody's opinion on all sides of this debate should be respected. There is a general view on all sides of the House that that respect is being encouraged.

I am encouraged on the one hand by the Minister's response, because I was awaiting to hear what he had to say. On the other hand, I have enormous compassion and sympathy for the cases that have been outlined by those who are supporting the amendment. I take the point about the choice that has to be made. However, I have met those courageous women from One Day More. They are equally as courageous as those who decided that they did not wish to have a continuation of their pregnancy. I was absolutely flabbergasted listening to them outlining their particular situations, where they knew from 21 weeks or 22 weeks that the child they were carrying was not going to live for very long, if at all. The House has already heard the outcome of those particular cases from Senator Healy Eames. Those women and their partners are extremely courageous people. Equally, I have enormous compassion for those who could not, psychologically and otherwise, continue with a pregnancy with the same knowledge.

The only problem for me is if I take it that all human life is sacred. Medical science is a very inexact science. As was pointed out in one particular instance, the doctors had given up on the pregnancy of one of those mothers we met, yet the child lived and is still alive. That raises a fundamental question of ethics as well, and I think the Minister himself touched on it. What is the time limit on viability? Is it five seconds, five minutes, five weeks? It is an inexact science, so on the basis that I support the sanctity of life and of the unborn, I would have difficulty with the amendment, but I have great sympathy and understanding of the amendment. It complicates the issues for me, because it is not simple and it is not straightforward. I have spoken to people about fatal foetal abnormalities. One half is going with me on this, and the other half is not. It is a dilemma and I wish I could resolve it for myself.

I do not necessarily agree, in the concept of choice, that a woman is exclusively responsible for her own body. That is my view. That is my belief. I said this yesterday on Second Stage; the man has been totally air-brushed out of that argument in this respect, as if he never existed. Yet as we know, abortions have taken place because of pressure from the father on the vulnerable mother-to-be in her crisis pregnancy. We will never know the reasons 4,000 Irish women go abroad or what their individual cases are. Nobody has ever been able to monitor them and nobody has analysed it. We can only go on anecdotal evidence as to why, but we cannot quantify every one of those 4,000 as having the same issue, motivation or intention. Ultimately, they end up in the same way.

I understand where the Minister is coming from in this regard. I wish that the issue could be resolved. It looks like it may ultimately require a constitutional challenge on this. I do not think there is much more that we can do about it. I wish that we could. The Minister has not offered any particular succour in this respect, because he is constitutionally restrained in this Bill. However, it is an issue that will not go away. I commend Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail for tabling the amendment.

I would like to make a final point about rape and incest. I will continue to say it every time this issue comes up. Who speaks for the unborn? Who speaks for the innocent victim? I absolutely agree with all of the descriptions that have been stated here about rape and incest. They are the most horrific crimes and are the ultimate invasion of a woman's dignity. I do not think I can ever get it into my head what is going on in the head of a woman who has to face that particular reality. At the end of the day, what I believe she is carrying is life. Others believe that what is in her belly is a zygote, or that it is not an entity until it is delivered into the world. There are many who think that. I do not think that. There is a heartbeat at 30 days and there are brainwaves at 40 days. The unborn feels, thinks and reacts to what is going on in a woman's body. Therefore it is life to me. In the context of rape or incest, what that mother is carrying is an innocent life.

If one agrees with aborting and terminating the pregnancy, it means that life is extinguished. Instead of having one life unquestionably traumatised - one will not know how the rape victim will end up - another life will be sacrificed. I do not believe that is acceptable because the individual in the stomach of the woman is an innocent life. I do not see why it should be the person who should suffer.