Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I find that an appalling but unsurprising reply from the Minister. As part of the untruths that have been perpetrated on the nation and members of his own party for the past number of months, presumably scripted for him by people in his Department, it sanitises what is happening. He failed to say clearly what type of medical procedures will be allowed. His failure clearly indicates that all current abortion procedures, many of which are barbaric, and one I described the other day will be allowed should the doctor have the discretion to do them. I would have expected the Minister to inform the House that most abortions are in the first trimester and most of those will probably be dealt with as medical abortions which involve taking drugs 48 hours apart and creating a situation similar to a miscarriage.

The drugs cause contractions and expel the unborn baby. It may take hours or sometimes days for it to happen. The Minister is a doctor and will be better informed than a Minister for Health who does not have that qualification. I understand that 8% to 10% of these will fail and a surgical procedure will have to be adopted. Surgical procedure involves suction aspiration, which uses a powerful suction tube with a sharp cutting edge which is inserted into the womb. It dismembers the body of the developing baby, sucking foetal parts into the collection bottle. Tell me if that is disallowed under the Bill. I am concerned because the taking of human life in whatever way is wrong. I ask the Minister to tell us whether that will be allowed either in the first or the second trimester.

Saline abortion is another fairly common one. It involves the injection of drugs or chemicals which cause the death of the child and his or her expulsion from the uterus. The baby, as the Minister will know, breathes in, swallowing the salt, and is poisoned. The chemical solution also causes painful burning and the deterioration of the baby's skin. After about an hour, the child dies. It is chilling for me to read this out and, I am sure, for people to hear. Surely it is more chilling for the mother and the child that are going to be put through that experience. In particular, it is chilling for the doctors to whom the Minister will look to impose it. They have not had a difficulty in dealing with situations in which there is a medical emergency involving the life of the mother. They deal with the mother and as a consequence the baby may well lose his or her life. Nobody in his or her right senses disagrees with that. There is no good reason suicidality is being included in the Bill. We will talk about that in detail when we come to section 9.

The Minister has not dismissed for me the totally barbaric procedure that was introduced in the United States of America by President Clinton in the 1990s, which is partial-birth abortion. In this procedure, the baby is pulled so that the head is left in the womb, after which one sticks a scissors in, opens it wide and sucks the brains out. This is the type of thing that happened in the Middle Ages and should have no place in modern medicine. The Minister refers to such procedures as "medical procedures" in his Bill. I challenge him in the name of everything that is right and in the name of humanity to stand up here and tell us if those acts will be allowed under his medical procedures or not. He owes us that. He should not stick to a script with sanitised language. This is what we are talking about. This is abortion. The Minister must tell us whether those things are allowed. That is why I am moving and will press amendment No. 4.