James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The fact of the matter is that what we are legislating for is to bring clarity to a process of a determination. There is clarity around how the decision will be arrived at but not how the consequence of that decision should be carried out because that is to be prescriptive. There is no running away from that and no amount of language will cloud that or change that. That is why I will not be able to accept the amendment. I accept the Senator may want to withdraw it so that she can resubmit it on Report Stage, and so be it.

However, I will not be in any way deceitful here. I will be straight and clear. Doctors will make their clinical judgment and they will act to ensure safe and as pain-free as possible care. The Senator asked about the draft regulations and they will be on the Department's website this evening.

Senator Walsh talked about the viability of the baby. I am making it absolutely clear that if a viable baby is born, everything will be done to support that baby. A woman has a right in this country, as we speak and without this legislation, to a termination of pregnancy where it is the only treatment available to avert the real and substantial risk to her life. As I said earlier in this House and in the other one, no woman, no man, no citizen or no non-citizen in this country has a right to end the life of a newborn baby. That is infanticide and it is punishable under the law. Let us not try to confuse these issues and the idea of late abortions of a viable new born baby at 24 weeks onwards. Sadly, babies are not always viable at 24 or 30 weeks but in general they are. They will be looked after and given every support available.

I cannot prescribe to doctors how to carry out their treatments but we can, as a Legislature and as we are doing, tell them what treatments are legal. I expect that as medical practice becomes more innovative, sophisticated and complex, much of what the Senator talks about will become more prevalent.

In terms of there being an anaesthetist present at all times, I fail to see how occasions would arise in the general run of things where there would not be an anaesthetist available, except in an acute emergency and even then a lot of those emergencies would arise in the course of a surgical procedure where there would be an anaesthetist.

I accept the sentiment of what the Senator is bringing to this. Nobody wants to see any suffering of a mother or an unborn child. I believe the medical professionals involved will do everything to ensure that. I have to reiterate, inconvenient and all as it might be, that I cannot prescribe how doctors are to do their work.