Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I also commend the Minister on the work he is doing on this issue and for his very comprehensive statement. A vote to repeal the eighth amendment to remove Article 40.3.3° from our Constitution is a vote for compassion and common sense. Let me make something clear. Voting for repeal is not about voting for abortion. Voting for repeal is about voting for choice. Choice means that someone is perfectly entitled to their opinion and position on abortion, and if their position is that abortion is not something they would consider for themselves, then so be it. Choice means someone follows their own conscience.Anti-choice means that one must take responsibility for the next maternity tragedy, for the next Savita Halappanavar or for the next Ann Lovett.

We hear more and more stories from women in recent days and weeks. My heart broke when I heard the story on radio the other day about a woman who discovered that her very wanted baby had a life-limiting foetal abnormality and could not survive outside the womb. I encourage anyone to listen to her story on RTÉ online. I honestly think it would be a cold-hearted soul who could listen to her story and still feel that voting "No" is anything other than utterly inhumane to the women and girls who find themselves in situations where they have to make the difficult decisions to terminate pregnancies. I am sorry but I want to be respectful. However, if anyone is seriously daft enough to suggest that a vote to retain Article 40.3.3° will save lives, there comes a point where I have to ask people to please open their minds.

Today, women and girls are making decisions about their bodies. Today, women and girls are leaving this country to avail of the services being offered across channel. Today, women and girls are going online to order abortion medication. Some might say women have choice already and are making decisions. As the Minister said, however, women are making decisions without proper medical support. Women are making decisions which are often influenced by their financial circumstances. Accordingly, women and girls in more challenged socio-economic situations are forced to take the less safe decision to self-medicate without full medical supervision because they are not able to afford to travel. This is happening today.

Rosita Boland wrote a gut-wrenching feature about Ann Lovett in The Irish Timesa few days ago. Reading again of the death of Ann, reminding myself of the circumstances in which she and her baby died, was like hearing the story for the first time. Let us dwell on that scene in the field beside the grotto. Let us together imagine her pain, her agony. Let us consider the pitiful loneliness of a young girl, alone, beside a grotto, in the pouring rain, giving birth in her school uniform. Ann Lovett was found drenched and in a state of deep shock, close to death, with cut hands and knees at a blood-drenched scene under the gaze of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Let us call a spade a spade. By opposing repeal, one gives tacit approval to scenarios of human tragedy like this. As writer Sinéad Gleeson commented in response to the piece, "there are plenty of people in Ireland who would still prefer children to give birth than access safe and legal abortion." It is a chilling statement that angers me. She says it like it is. Shame on us as a nation. As we approach 6 April, the date which would have been Ann Lovett's 50th birthday, I would love to be able to say, "Thank God it is not like that anymore in this State." However, I am just not sure that a God so lacking in compassion deserves allegiance on this issue. To those who claim to be opposed to repeal on religious grounds because of the teachings of the church, I have to ask is this the same church, the same one with its all-male hierarchy, that, in recent weeks failed to come out and publicly renounce a senior international member of its clergy who said he would go to jail rather than give information about the confessions of paedophile abusers. Is this okay because it is in His name, as the Christian mantra goes? To that, I say in her name.

I appeal, in her name, to people to have compassion and common sense, to acknowledge the reality of the Ireland we live in today, where women will make their own decisions with or without support, but without support will continue to take risks in those decisions. I say it in her name, in Ann Lovett's name, in Savita Halappanavar's name. I say it in the names of the countless unnamed women and girls who leave our shores every day. I say it in the names of the women whose pregnancies are tainted by trauma and heartache, the women and girls who have been raped, the women and girls whose foetuses are deemed to be incompatible with life. I say it in the names of the women who are pressing the "Pay Now" buttons on their laptops, ordering abortion pills. I say it in the names of the medical staff whose hands are tied, who cannot make sensible and life-saving interventions because of the ridiculous and inhumane restrictions the current eighth amendment puts on them and their patients, the women they cannot fully treat, the women whose decisions are made more traumatic, more heart-breaking, more dangerous, more life-threatening by the current situation.

In her name, in their names, I ask Senators to respect women and their bodies. I ask them to vote to repeal Article 40.3.3°, to repeal the eighth amendment. I ask them to vote, whatever their personal opinion, in her name, in their names, in the names of women and girls in the past, in the names of women and girls in the present, in the names of the women and girls who will continue to access abortion services into the future. I ask them to vote for compassion, for common sense, for the reality of what is already happening. I ask them to vote for repeal, for choice and for women.