Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----and the chill of the eighth amendment. Let us be clear: 160,000 of us have faced that over the decades. Twenty-nine years ago, my colleagues and I in the students union in Trinity College felt it particularly closely when we were threatened with prison for giving information on abortion to pregnant women. What stands out for me is the memory of all the women who rang us, desperate for information, for a phone number for a clinic in England which they could not access anywhere else in those pre-Internet days. They were in crisis pregnancy circumstances none of us could have understood. I was only 21. It was unthinkable for us that we could do nothing legally to help those women, so of course we continued to give the information and to face prison. Happily, we did not get sent to prison because we had a wonderful legal team who represented us and made arguments based on European law that kept us out of jail, but we were declared bankrupt and the case went on for many years.

Information was a very live issue and remains so, until or unless we pass this legislation. One of the happiest provisions in the legislation before us is section 5, which repeals the Regulation of Information (Services outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995 and repeals censorship provisions still on the Statute Book because of our outdated and outrageous attitude towards women's sexuality and reproductive rights for so long. I am overwhelming relieved and happy that we are here today debating this legislation. I join with colleagues in commending all of the many people who worked so hard to make this happen. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has had to leave but as Senator Ruane rightly said, he played a significant personal part in ensuring the referendum passed this year. Senator Noone's calm steering of the Oireachtas committee was very impressive and, again, that played an important part. As I said on many occasions, the report of the Oireachtas committee makes for very instructive reading. I know there are many in this House and elsewhere who are not persuaded but it does make constructive reading to see the evidence basis on which the members of the committee, including a number of Senators and my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, were persuaded of the need to repeal the eighth amendment. I know from my personal conversations and knowledge of them that they did come with open minds. I know Senator Noone will agree with that. Many of them were not persuaded of the need to repeal the eighth amendment or had other views and were persuaded by the evidence they heard, in particular on the three grounds outlined in the report.

The first is the reality that women were travelling and continue to travel at the rate of nine women every day, adding up to between 3,000 and 4,000 women every year, and the fact that women are taking abortion pills at home in Ireland under constant risk of criminalisation. The second point was the medical evidence the committee heard that doctors themselves were feeling the chill of the eighth amendment, were constrained in medical practice and could not deal compassionately and justly with, for example, couples facing the terrible diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality. The medical evidence was crucial. What I thought was also very interesting was that the committee was persuaded also by the evidence before it that Ireland remains in breach of international human rights law, in failing to give women recourse to health-saving terminations of pregnancy where necessary to save lives. I refer to the international human rights provisions, in particular the cases of Amanda Mellet and Siobhan Whelan, who took their cases before the UN Human Rights Committee. Before them, there were the women in the A, B and C case in 2010. Those cases were also very persuasive for members of the committee in terms of recommending repeal of the eighth amendment and therefore also the passage of this sort of legislation, providing for legal abortion services in Ireland.

That is how we came to this process and to the point where we have this legislation. Along the way there were many tragic and hard cases. The most tragic cases have been those of Savita Halappanavar, the appalling death of that young woman in Galway in 2012, but also the appalling case of PP in 2014. Any of us who had any knowledge of that case were utterly devastated by it. She was a young woman who was brain dead and was artificially kept alive because there was still a foetal heartbeat. There were some terrible cases involving utter trauma and anguish to many women and their families. We heard the testimony of the many brave couples and families in the Termination for Medical Reasons group who spoke also about the lack of compassion with which they were treated in Irish hospitals by Irish doctors who were again constrained by the eighth amendment. We cannot forget the many thousands of women who faced the double crisis of having to make the arrangements to travel, often in conditions of secrecy and not being able to access the funds to make the travel arrangements and having to travel to England to access the reproductive healthcare they needed there. The eighth amendment has caused an immense shadow for so long for so many people and it is really welcome that we are now at a position where we can debate sensible legislation of the sort before us in order for women to access the reproductive healthcare we need here at home in Ireland.

The Bill before us is closely based on the heads of the Bill published in advance of the referendum. The Minister, Deputy Harris, said that before he left the House. My Labour Party colleagues and I supported the decision to publish the heads of the Bill in advance. That was sensible and it informed the debate. It helped to give a shape to the campaign and it meant that we all knew what we were voting for. We do have to be cognisant of that when we are debating changes to the legislation, that this was very much the framework that was put before the people. It is quite in line with some other European countries and it is much more progressive than the 1967 Abortion Act under which 160,000 Irish women have had abortions, which effectively is Irish abortion although as Senator Noone said, it was the English solution to the Irish problem. That Act requires reasons to be given and proven by the woman. It requires two doctors to certify, even in early pregnancy. One of the most positive aspects of this legislation that was in the framework before the people in May is that it allows for first trimester abortion without the need to establish any grounds. I know the reason the committee recommended that was precisely because of women who were pregnant as a result of rape and who would otherwise have had to go through some awful legal process to prove rape. In my view the provision for abortion access up to 12 weeks without recourse to reasons is entirely sensible. It is more progressive than the English law. That is not to say there are not difficulties with the law. Other speakers have outlined some of them. For many of us who are pro-choice, as I am, the three-day waiting period is unduly restrictive and there is clear medical evidence of that.We will table amendments try to make that at least less burdensome. I am conscious that that was outlined to people in advance of the referendum, but I believe it should not be there. We should consider how we can adjust it to try to make it less burdensome for women.

Sections 9 to 11, inclusive, deal with abortions where there is a risk to life or health, in the case of emergency and in the case of fatal foetal abnormality. We need to ensure that procedures are not too cumbersome for the women, are workable for the doctors involved and do not amount to undue obstacles to women's access.

The section 23 provision on decriminalisation is crucial. We will certainly table amendments on that because we need to avoid the sorts of prosecutions we have seen in Northern Ireland where a mother was prosecuted for assisting her daughter to gain access to an abortion pill. It would be most unjust to continue with that kind of criminalisation in this law. I hope we can find a way to avoid that sort of impact of criminalisation. I take the point about the need to criminalise those engaged in, for example, coercive forced abortions. Clearly that must be outlawed, but there are other ways to do it and we need to look at those.

I welcome the Minister's commitment to introduce exclusion zones or safe-access zones in other legislation. I also welcome that the legislation will be reviewed. I hope that even if some of the changes we wish to see made are not made at this point, they are taken into account and made at a future date.

As others have said, we need to look more broadly at women's access to reproductive healthcare. We need to ensure that women, girls and boys have access to sex education and contraception. That was a key part of the ancillary recommendations of the Oireachtas committee's report. We need to be clear that we will get the Bill through in time to ensure that women will be able to access the services they so badly need in early January.

I wish to say a little more about the process which brought us to this Bill and the referendum campaign. Of course, I am glad to see the 2013 Act repealed. It was necessarily restrictive because of the eighth amendment. Those of us who sat in this House during the debates on that Act will remember how awfully hard it was to get that legislation through. Disgusting language was used against those of us who were simply promoting the right of women to have their lives saved through access to medical procedures and the right of doctors to be able to perform these life-saving terminations. Dr. Peter Boylan absolutely deserves commendation for standing out on that.

That legislative process was very important because without it the eighth amendment would not have been repealed. Some 77 women have had their lives saved over the period that Act has been in place. Flawed as it is, it has saved lives. It meant that for the first time we in the Oireachtas had to take on our responsibility as legislators to debate abortion in this House. That Act was very important at the time. I accept it is restrictive and I am delighted that it will be repealed, but we should not forget the context and the enormous opposition to it from many people who said it would open the floodgates and lead to women having access to abortion on demand. Dreadful language was used which was most anti-women.

There were other steps along the way, including the Citizens' Assembly under the chairmanship of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy and the Together for Yes campaign under the wonderful leadership of Ailbhe Smyth, Gráinne Griffin and Áine O'Connor. All of these people deserve enormous commendation.

I also commend my colleagues in the Labour Party. The Labour Party flew the flag in its opposition to the eighth amendment back in 1983 and pushed for repeal over many years when it was neither politically popular nor indeed safe to do so. Some of my Labour Party colleagues had protestors camping out in front of their homes and in their gardens. They were subjected to appalling verbal and physical abuse as I have also been over many years. Let us not forget that it took a long road to get here. It is extremely positive that we have reached this point. It is a great relief, particularly for the 66.4% who voted for the introduction of this legislation and for the many women who, I really hope, from 1 January will be able to access the services we so badly need.