Seanad debates

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

An Bille um an Séú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht 2018: An Dara Céim - Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2018: Second Stage

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Diarmuid WilsonDiarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Harris, back to the House. I regret the fact that this legislation is before us this evening. It is something to which I am totally opposed. I want to put that clearly on the record of the House. I pay tribute to the Oireachtas joint committee, which published its report before Christmas, and especially to its chairperson, our colleague, Senator Catherine Noone, and the Fianna Fáil representative from this House on that committee, Senator Ned O'Sullivan. While I totally disagree with almost everything in that report, I commend the members and Chairperson of that committee on the hard work they put into it. The one element of it that I would like to discuss with the Minister is the education programme he proposes to put in place for three years and I will return to that.

The recent Supreme Court ruling that the only right an unborn child has in the Constitution is the right to be born will be seriously damaged and affected if this referendum is successful. The eighth amendment guarantees the right to life of the unborn child. It was inserted into the Irish Constitution in 1983. The amendment is found in Article 40.3.3o of the Constitution and reads: "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." What is so wrong with that wording? We are asking the Irish people to remove that wording from the Constitution and replace it with one line which reads: "Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy". As alluded to by my colleague, Senator Paul Daly, we are taking out a constitutional guarantee to protect the unborn child and replacing it with that one line. I am absolutely sure that this is not good enough.

While I have huge respect for the Members of this House and of the Lower House and respect their right to legislate, I do not have a belief that a future Government that might find itself with a minority could be beholden to a handful of Deputies who would want to move from the 12-week limit to 6 months or 7 months or have no limit. That is what potentially could happen if we remove that guarantee from the Constitution.

The eighth amendment protects mothers and babies in pregnancy. It has protected more than 100,000 lives since it was voted into our Constitution by the Irish people. It has had a hugely positive humane and life-saving impact on society. Our abortion rates are a fraction of those in Britain, taking account of the different sizes of the two populations.

This referendum is about one thing only, removing the protection for unborn babies in the womb and making it possible for laws to be passed to deliberately end their lives. I will be voting against this legislation this evening and voting "No", and campaigning for a "No" vote, in the referendum.

On the Minister's three-year education programme, if this referendum is put to the people and rejected, will he continue with it?

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