Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

He was told that this was fanciful and effectively a scare story, but it came into existence in the decision in the X case when the Supreme Court stated there could be travel injunctions and that the only thing that could override them was the threat of suicide or another threat to the life of a mother. That point is important because we put in place in the Constitution what, in retrospect, I consider to be a fundamental untruth, that the fertilised ovum or, after a period of four weeks, a group of cells the size of a fingernail or, after eight weeks, perhaps the size of a finger, is a person with exactly the same rights as a mother and the only circumstance in which one can prevail over the other is where there is a threat to the mother’s life. It was creating a constitutional untruth. To go one step further, the excuse offered by that prominent academic and all those who supported the 1983 referendum was that we could not trust judges not to impose in Ireland a Roe v. Wadeoutcome. Now they are saying people cannot trust politicians either. Whom can they trust if not the organs of a democracy to deal with a complex issue such as this?

The outcome of the referendum is not a foregone conclusion. It cannot be left to the extremists or the most ardent people to make the arguments. They must be addressed for the middle ground by people who sound reasonable, supportive and build confidence. The arguments for repeal are very strong and go all the way back to those of Adrian Hardiman and Peter Sutherland as to why the eighth amendment was a mistake and are very valid, but they have to be articulated in a way that will bring people with them. If, as a democracy, we cannot trust the Judiciary, politicians and the women of Ireland in the choices they must make, whom are we to trust? We should have the courage to ask the people to trust themselves to give to the politicians they elect and the Judiciary whom they have indirectly appointed the control and right to legislate in an area which is grey and which, if dealt with as black and white, produces falsehoods, injustice and cruelty on occasion. In response to Senator Rónán Mullen and those who say Savita Halappanavar's position simply had to do with sepsis, it was not because if it was simply that, what were they doing monitoring a foetal heartbeat? Why was that relevant in dealig with the sepsis issue? It was more than that.