John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

With the greatest of respect for my dear friend and colleague, Senator Paschal Mooney, whose absolute sincerity on this issue I appreciate, I am delighted that he will withdraw his amendment. The idea that showing any kind of an X-ray or scan to a suicidal person would change him or her from being suicidal is the least evidence-based proposal that I have ever heard. To illustrate what evidence-based medicine is about, people need to understand this point. I am delighted that, wisely and humanely, Senator Mooney took counsel on this matter and decided to withdraw the amendment.

No one who supports the Bill, which includes the suicide clause, claims that doctors must consider abortion as a treatment for suicide. Rather, it is saying that if the evidence base at the time the decision must be made – evidence bases change - suggests that it may be appropriate, the doctor will not face prosecution. The only logical reason that people of good faith could be opposed to the Bill was if they believed that it was a licence for deliberate malfeasance. It is on this question that those who oppose the inclusion of the suicide provision need to say whether they believe that women will lie and not one but a whole panel of doctors will collectively and unprecedentedly suspend every critical faculty they have and make the wrong decision for reasons that are wholly malfeasant, not based on their training and clinical evidence.

Various people who have spoken on the Bill have been quoted repeatedly. I will not mention names but the number of Members in this House and the Lower House on the airwaves and in the print media who have expressed opinions is extraordinary. I will stray into the legalities, as everyone else is straying in to the medicine-----