Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak to my amendment No. 38. The amendment states: "In page 10, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: "(c) that medical procedure shall not involve the intentional destruction of a viable unborn,' ". The key words are "intentional" and "viable unborn". I have great difficulty with the reason for not taking this amendment in the Dáil. Why was the Government not open to accepting this amendment on Committee Stage in the Dáil? The aim of this amendment is to allow medical practitioners to intervene to save a mother's life in a manner in which attempts are also made to save the baby's life. The current wording, instead of maybe, presumes that the baby's life will be ended rather than saved and in fact does not render lawful the saving of the baby's life. There is no reason for the current wording to remain other than to pave the way for situations where no attempt is made to save the baby's life at all. This is not acceptable. We are talking about a viable baby.

There is a second part to my amendment which I would like to address. It states "(d) where the unborn is sixteen weeks gestation or older, an effective anaesthetic for pain relief shall be administered to the foetus before the medical procedure is commenced." To support this, if we are to have abortions they must be done in the most pain-free way for the child. That is the very least we can do to be as humane as possible. Neo-natal surgeons in the UK use anaesthetics in surgery on unborn children as they conclude that they feel pain. Pro-choice professor, Vivette Glover, called for anaesthetics to be used during terminations on unborn children. I emphasise that the professor is pro-choice. According to an article published in The Telegraph on 2 September 2000 by Daniel Johnson:

. . . Professor Vivette Glover, [said] that a foetus aborted between 17 and 24 weeks after conception may, after all, feel pain.
. . .
Prof Glover's response should disturb us even more than her belated recognition that the "termination" of unborn babies in the womb is likely to cause unimaginable suffering. Rather than face the truth, she simply calls for anaesthetics: "I am pro-choice, but one should not muddle the two. One should think about how one is doing it in the most pain-free way."

We can credit her with that. There is a great deal of support for this argument. In 2001 a working group of the Medical Research Council in the UK suggested that doctors should consider the use of analgesia and sedation for foetuses over 24 weeks of age undergoing surgery. Professor Eve Johnstone, the chairperson of the working group, said that a foetus was aware of pain by 24 weeks, maybe as early as 20 weeks because connections from the thalamus to the cortex in the brain begin to form at about 20 weeks' gestation. We are legislating here today, this week, this month, to terminate the life of the unborn where it is deemed that a mother's life is at risk. Could we do it with dignity, if we have to do it at all? I do not believe it is dignified. Could we do it as humanely as possible and in as pain-free a way as possible? Somebody has to speak for the unborn. In this case they deserve to be pain-free.