Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

From reports I have come across on foetal pain, it is happening earlier than the 24 weeks indicated by the Minister of State yesterday. I would like to refer him to a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in England, which strongly recommends that women should routinely be offered pain relief during surgical operations. It is part of their recommendations that this would be done. I cannot find where it states that pain relief should be given to the baby, but from the information we have, which is medically underpinned, everything that Senator Healy Eames says is factual. If we are even half interested in being humane, to me it would be a logical step that this would be done, especially given the fact that our abortion legislation is unique in that there are no effective time limits on it. It behoves us as legislators at least to have that level of compassion and include in the Bill provisions that avoid foetal pain.

Former US President Ronald Reagan was the man who introduced abortion in 1967 in California, so he did not come to the subject without some knowledge and perhaps some regret for what he had done. He later said that "Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing". I support the amendment from Senator Healy Eames. I do not think it requires any great pressing from our point of view. Anybody who has a humane approach to this topic, even though we may have different perspectives on the substantive issue, would certainly not want the unborn baby to be suffering pain as a consequence of the procedure being carried out.