Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Why do I say that?I heard the Minister say he recognises the deeply held views on all sides of this debate and respects them, but he told us, with passion, later that he was tired of being an ostrich. I do not believe it is being an ostrich to look out from Ireland and take account of our situation, imperfect as it is. Ireland is, nonetheless, a country where many women, who in abortion jurisdictions would have chosen abortion, go on to give life, and a bad situation, in many cases, becomes better because there is care for both the unborn baby and his or her mother.

We have been presented with rhetoric here this evening that suggests that all aspects of this issue have been considered but, in reality, there has been much wilful blindness and deafness to many basic realities, the first and obvious reality being the humanity of the unborn child. It is remarkable how science has never been better in terms of helping us to understand the wonder and complexity of a developing child in a womb, not a potential human being but a human being with potential, with a heart that is beating at 22 days and all sorts of other developmental stages which people simply did not know about once upon a time. However, with the assistance of the 4D ultrasound we have doctors in abortion jurisdictions, such as Britain, asking themselves how can it be right that we are trying to save life in one part of a hospital and destroy it at an almost similar term of pregnancy in another part of it? Science makes all that knowledge possible but, sadly, it has also made possible new ways of destroying life. There is wilful blindness to that.

There is also a refusal to consider whether the eighth amendment has in fact saved countless lives. That idea ran through the Citizens' Assembly, the committee and now the political establishment. We only have to look at our near neighbour, Britain, where one in five pregnancies ends in abortion. If we consider the Irish statistics, to the best we can understand the position, there are approximately 3,500 tragic cases of abortion where women travel to Britain or the Netherlands each year and I would also allow for 1,000 or so pills being imported. That also happens in an unregulated way in countries where abortion is allowed, therefore, that is really a red herring in this debate. Our figures can be estimated as somewhere between one in 15 and one in 19 pregnancies. How is it that nobody at the committee had hardly the slightest interest in exploring the question: does the law actually save lives? Somebody said to me recently there is many a pregnancy that is unwelcome in the first trimester but which is very welcome in the third. Sadly, in abortion jurisdictions that third trimester never comes. That is the reality. The pity is that people were not interested in finding out whether lives had been saved even though it was strongly suggested to the committee, the Government and the establishment that this question should be explored.

A woman called Mary Kenny, a young single parent, along with her child, Holly, made the point very eloquently when she said that the time it took for her to arrange an abortion in England was the time she needed to change her mind. These are the human realities that are not to be found in the Minister's speech. I hear talk of compassion and I am sure he means it but it is a very selective kind of compassion if it does not try to understand that there are two human beings to be loved and cared for here.

On the eighth amendment, the Minister said it is time the Irish people had their say. However, what he is offering the Irish people is to have a say for the last time because what the Government is proposing to do is to give itself complete power to decide how much and when abortion will be allowed in the future.

Senator Ned O'Sullivan referred to the disparity between the term of prison that might apply to a rapist and to a woman who procures an abortion using a pill. Let me put on the record that I have never supported the criminalisation of women in this case and I have made it very clear that the criminal law exists to deter, not always to punish, and as with infanticide, the law may say it is a crime but people are treated with mercy and compassion. Let us also reflect on the disparity between the rights of the rapist and the rights of the unborn child. That rapist has a constitutional right not to be killed. If we were to legislate for capital punishment in such a case, we would run foul of the Constitution's provisions, but the Minister and the Government are proposing not that the unborn baby would have fewer rights in the Constitution but zero rights. How can that be right if the unborn baby is anything more than a clump of cells? There is a real failure to engage with the humanity of that unborn boy or girl. That is the key to the matter-of-fact tone with which abortion, and widespread abortion, is being proposed as though it is somehow a step-up for health care in Ireland. The eighth amendment was designed to take this issue away from judges, which it almost completely did except for the X case, and, by the way, there have been some unjust deaths as a result of the 2013 legislation under a suicide ground that was never medically justifiable and even suicide prevention experts warned against it, and about seven babies lost their lives in that context since then. However, the eighth amendment was also designed to take the issue away from politicians because they simply cannot be trusted on this issue. We have seen that in the twisting and turning of Government figures where they say, "I am in favour of repeal but I a bit worried about the 12 weeks aspect". That is like saying, "I will leave the front door open but I really hope the burglars do not come in beyond the hallway". Repeal takes away everything from the unborn child and gives the politicians complete power to legislate for his or her destruction. Let us take the hard case issues that we must all grabble with sincerelyseriatim. If we take the issue of rape, the reality is that the eighth amendment operates from implantation in this country. The morning after pill, long before the Roche decision was prescribed - the Roche decision established very clearly that there is no issue about the legality of the morning after pill - surely must deal with many of the cases. We heard very interesting testimony at the committee on the subject of rape and that in many situations women go on to bring their pregnancies to term. I do not deny for a minute that is a hard case, but people are not being asked to legalise abortion on a rape ground, they are being asked to open the door completely. I do not see how it makes sense for the Minister to say that, of course, abortion will remain a criminal offence in certain cases. How is that anything but political words when we have legalised widespread abortion? Why would we have a problem with abortion being an offence in certain cases when we are willing to allow it so broadly?

If we think about the Orwellian approach, namely, that because we would like to deal with the hard cases of rape, but without talking about the morning after pill or other possibilities, we will now make it possible to abort any child up to 12 weeks in the womb despite what we know.

As to the foetal abnormalities cases, these are hard cases too. It is a case where good people will differ about what the rights of the baby ought to be, but again we are no longer talking about just legalising abortion on hard cases.

The most reckless arguments have been made where it has been attempted to impose a climate of fear around women's health care. The eighth amendment has guaranteed top quality health care to women and that has been reflected in our very low maternal mortality rates. It is frankly insulting not only to the medical profession but to the women of Ireland to say we have to be able to do better than a law where the only right a pregnant woman in this country has is not to die. That is a really stark and, I would submit, a mean way to describe the excellence of our health care. The reality is that before the committee we did not hear of one case where doctors were unable to give the woman the health care she needed because of the eighth amendment because the threat to life does not have to be imminent.