Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has been at pains over many months, as has the Taoiseach, to tell us that this Bill is about the protection of both mother and baby. Those comments are either the truth or they are lies. They cannot be both. I am prepared to accept the Minister at his word, to accept that he believes what he is saying is true. That is why I tabled amendment No. 4. The medical procedures envisaged under this legislation are not defined in the definitions section, but they include the prescribing by a medical practitioner of any drug or medical treatment. We all know what those procedures are in the context of abortion as it is understood globally. I have described one such procedure, based on Dr. Anthony Levatino's evidence to a committee of the United States Congress, and I challenge the Minister to say whether anything in that evidence is wrong.

I was asked by my colleague, Senator Darragh O'Brien, to clarify whether this amendment could in some way impede the working of sections 7 or 8 of the Bill. There is no way, in my opinion, that it could do so, nor is it my intention that it would. The medical evidence we heard over the six days of hearings by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children clearly set out current medical practice in dealing with situations where complications in pregnancy put the mother's life at risk. There was unanimous evidence from all the medical practitioners that they were not inhibited by the current constitutional or legal framework in ensuring they give every possible treatment and are able to intervene in appropriate ways to save the mother's life.

Most of the opposition to this Bill relates to section 9.