Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The medical procedure is the abortion procedure, which targets the life of the unborn baby. I am referring to two experts in the field, each one coming from a different perspective on the fundamental issue of either being pro-choice or pro-life. I am referring to their conclusion. It challenges all of us but particularly those who are pro-choice, as to where they stand on the spectrum. This is especially true when nobody is sick and there is a healthy mother and baby.

I heard the Minister say he is not accepting the amendment, which is part of a cavalier approach taken with the Bill since its publication or even before that. Health committee meetings were held to inform us but they were ignored and many Members put down amendments in the Dáil but not one was accepted for a Bill that deals with a fundamental function. Despite the legislation going to the root of life and death, not one amendment was accepted. If Senator Burke and others are happy with current medical practice, we should put it in our legislation. If we fail to put it in legislation, medical procedure - the abortion procedure - will have no prescribed meaning or definition, meaning everything happening in an international sense with abortion procedures will be legalised. If Senators want current medical practice to continue when they vote and they do not want alien practices, which everybody agrees are disgusting and barbaric, they should press the green button. If they press the red button, they should make no mistake but that they are legalising everything I described on Second and Committee Stages.