Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Senator should not jump all over me. The joint committee heard from the experts and Professor Kevin Malone, a suicide prevention expert, was extremely concerned with regard to the impact this would have, not just on women but on young men, particularly in the context of their mental health. Approximately 113 psychiatrists signed a statement indicating that they believe they are being wrongly drawn into a process which they do not regard as medical. Dr. John Sheehan, a perinatal psychiatrist, stated that under the legislation, psychiatrists are being asked to be the gatekeepers and that he could not predict what would be the outcome in this regard.

The joint committee also heard from other psychiatrists such as Dr. Anthony McCarthy who did not provide any reassurances in respect of numbers, other than the fact that he thought there would be very few. Dr. McCarthy did not provide any understanding on this matter and he never highlighted any circumstances in which a psychiatrist might decline an abortion on the grounds of suicide. It must be remembered that one is always rightly supposed to believe someone who states that he or she is suicidal. We were never really provided with an explanation as to how we might extricate ourselves from that morass.

For all of those reasons, I welcome Senator Healy Eames's amendment. Amendment No. 34 in my name provides a much more abridged version of what is contained in amendment No. 30. The basic point I am seeking to make with the amendment is that the good-faith standard contained in section 9 is extremely subjective and does not confer a duty upon psychiatrists to make a genuinely reasonable attempt to avert the risk of suicide by methods other than abortion. As a result, amendment No. 34 proposes that an objectively reasonable attempt should be made to "avert the risk of suicide via psychiatric treatment and/or engaging the patient with psychotherapy or counselling services". At an earlier point and in another context, the Minister stated that there would be a possibility of delaying a procedure where a child is on the cusp of viability. It seems, therefore, that there ought to be time to do this.

I also know what was stated in this Chamber by Dr. Maria Cahill during the joint committee's hearings in respect of the judgment in the Cosma case. The argument Dr. Cahill put forward was not, in my view, effectively rebutted by the Minister for Justice and Equality. In its judgment relating to that case, the Supreme Court appeared to lay down a clarification on how the X-case test might be applied when a person presents as suicidal. None of the Cosma case requirements has been imported into the legislation before us.

As already stated, amendment No. 34 refers to a reasonable attempt to "avert the risk of suicide via psychiatric treatment and/or engaging the patient with psychotherapy or counselling services" and in that context I recognise that every case turns on the facts relating to it and on the experience of the particular patient involved. The amendment also refers to the need for one of the medical practitioners involved to inform the woman of her "legal right to place her unborn for adoption after birth". During this debate, the idea of adoption has been almost completely neglected. This amendment, if accepted, would place no onerous duty - everyone should note those words carefully - on medical practitioners and nor would it place any kind of obstacle in the path of a woman. I am merely seeking here to defend and vindicate the right to life of the unborn by conferring a duty upon medical practitioners to consider all non-lethal means of avoiding a risk to the woman's life via suicide and to inform her of her rights.