Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes. That is Senator Walsh’s amendment. What if the baby is healthy and aborted? What if the life is ended just because the mother is suicidal without first going for the options I have already mentioned? The American Congress recently passed a Bill introducing a ban on abortion over 20 weeks because a baby can feel pain at this stage. This means that abortion over 20 weeks is banned all over the United States of America. The Irish Bill does not make any exception for or mention of safe delivery at any time during the nine months of pregnancy or even mention a cutting-off point. Is this deliberate, as a means of helping pro-life doctors to avoid aborting by delaying as safe as possible a delivery for an unborn baby? If any doctor, midwife or surgeon is doing his or her utmost to protect mother and child, bearing in mind that Ireland is the safest place in the world to have a baby, I know that very few would opt to carry out abortions, especially those with conscientious objections. If doctors are forced to find others to carry out the procedure, especially in an emergency, they may be left with both a deceased mother and baby if they have to move both the mother and the unborn child to another hospital because one hospital opts not to carry out the procedure. There are all sorts of issues here that appear to have been left out of this legislation. It is a clinical attempt to introduce abortion and my simple rationale-----