Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a most difficult area for all of us. There is no huge difference between our concerns, though we may have different perspectives as to how it might be resolved. The interruptions of Senator Fidelma Healy Eames while she was making her point were unhelpful. I found there was no real difference in the sense of loss of the parents who came to the Oireachtas with the National Women's Council and who were promoting abortion and the One Day More people who came to tell their stories. I was struck that some of the One Day More people had photographs which had been taken in the short period during which the baby had lived. The family got around. The fact that they had these photographs did not alleviate their problem, but it helped them in the bereavement process. That came across as a significant factor which was not there with the other group.

I accept fully that the proposers of the amendments do not in any way have an intention that it should lead to the abortion of people with disabilities. I do not question this. During the health committee hearings I received a telephone call from an Irish woman, who is a doctor in London. She told me she was really concerned about what she was hearing from the health committee hearings. She told me of her personal experience with her first child who had Down's syndrome. She was advised on at least three occasions during her pregnancy, on one or two of which she was urged, to have an abortion and not to have the baby. She told me her problem living in London was that she could not access the necessary services and supports for her baby with Down's syndrome because the critical mass was not there. Of babies diagnosed with Down's syndrome, 90% are aborted in England. The intention in England when the legislation was introduced in 1967 was never to have people with disabilities included. We have seen it go to the stage now that unborn babies identified with cleft palates have been aborted. It is an appalling vista and we do not want to go there. For that reason, the legislation must be thoroughly scrutinised.

Senator Aideen Hayden referred to the figure of 150,000, which has been thrown around the room many times by people with a perspective on it. While we do not know why many or all of them have travelled to England for an abortion, we know that 20% of them have gone for more than one abortion, which statistic comes from our own Department of Health. Anecdotally, I have been told by a doctor of a woman who went this year for her sixth abortion.