Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Instead of receiving the support and assistance of their State in their time of need, they have faced criminalisation, demonisation and isolation. At the same time we put the eighth amendment into the Constitution we severely controlled access to contraception in Ireland. We are rightly contemptuous of that regime now and one would be hard pressed to find anyone to defend it. Similar arguments to maintain the status quohad to be tackled, campaigned against and dismantled in order to give Irish people the right to decide their own destiny.

Observing the process in the Citizens' Assembly and the Oireachtas joint committee, it became clear that the overwhelming majority of medical opinion maintains that the eighth amendment does not work. It does not work for pregnant people in medical care as we saw with Savita Halappanavar, Ann Lovett and all of the individuals who were mentioned by Senator Ó Ríordáin who were dragged through the courts for trying to exercise control over their bodies. The provision does not work for medical professionals. It leaves them in a legal limbo and unfree to offer the assistance they consider necessary.

I have learned so much from observing these processes over the past month. I learned that the 12-week limit is one based on fact. I also learned that testing for conditions such as chromosomal abnormality is not possible before that time and is thus not relevant for this part of the debate. These relevant facts must form the basis of public debate in advance of the referendum.

This campaign will be difficult. I was not in Ireland in 1983. Instead, I was on Greenpeace vessels that sailed around the world to tackle nuclear waste. From what I heard about the 1983 campaign, I think what I did was a lot easier.