Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----to doctors anywhere else. The problem is once the medical profession is corrupted by targeting innocent life and asking professionals to carry out such action, the ethos of medicine is changed.

There was a comment from Senator Burke to the effect that at 24 weeks, a baby has a good chance of survival. I do not know what the Senator would describe as "good" as the evidence given at the health committee was that a baby has a 50% chance of living at that stage. Of the 50% who would survive at that stage, 50% would suffer disability such as brain damage, cerebral palsy, etc. At that stage, only 25% will come through early viability to be able to perform and participate fully in society, which is regrettable.

In these Houses we all espouse causes of human rights but we have those rights because we are human. Those rights evolve from the fact that we are human. Peter Stringer and Robert George are professors at Princeton University, with one being pro-choice and the other pro-life. They agree that if a person is pro-abortion, there is no defence other than accepting that infanticide is the same as abortion. Stringer actually embraces infanticide.