Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is obviously the central issue in the entire debate. Senator Healy Eames has spoken very eloquently and I will not speak for very long. I was particularly taken by Senator Mooney's proposed amendment and it is a matter for him as to whether he presses it.

Good care for a mother should always be and by definition has to be completely compatible with good care for her unborn child. Our understanding of caring based on everything we have heard and learned through this long process is that women are not well served by abortion. As we know from the famous but perhaps not sufficiently discussed Ferguson studies, abortion is not associated with any improved mental health outcomes for women and is associated with a low to moderate risk of negative mental health sequelae for women. That is not just in the case of women with prior mental health issues but it is a more general proposition.

During the committee hearings we heard and the Minister has pointed out that it would be impossible to do a specific study of women presenting as suicidal and requesting an abortion that would distinguish between those who were given it and those who were not. The drift of knowledge in this area is to associate abortion with negative rather than positive mental health outcomes. It would therefore seem entirely appropriate that, in the context of a caring protective engagement between any woman and her medical expert, guide and carer, the possibility of negative mental health outcomes associated with abortion would be canvassed in truth - that is called informed consent.

If in that context and in an appropriate way some reflection on the reality of the unborn child were suggested, that would seem entirely compatible with good care for both the woman and the child. We need to bear in mind as we have been constantly told there is a constitutional architecture that refers to the equal right to life of the unborn and also bearing in mind what the legislation we are told requires which is the formation of a reasonable opinion that the risk to life brought about by the threat of suicide and suicidal ideation can only be averted by carrying out the medical procedure.

In an ideal world of the kind where there are only good doctors and pregnancy counsellors - we are being invited to believe such a world exists - no abortions would be carried out under section 9 because, by definition, one would not have to be a psychiatrist to conclude that abortion could not be the only means by which the risk of suicide could be averted in view of the fact that there would always be a possibility that the person involved, by an act of will, would opt against abortion. In that sense, it could always be truthfully stated that abortion could not be the only way to avert the risk. This would apply in the circumstances to which I refer in a way in which it would never apply to section 7 or section 8 procedures because there is an objective risk to life which could only be remediated by medical intervention.

We live in the real world and we all know what section 9 means. We also know how difficult it is for psychiatrists to make decisions in respect of this matter. There are no experts present but I heard Senator Gilroy's comments and I respect them.