Seanad debates

Monday, 10 December 2018

Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

2:00 pm

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The section needed to be amended to ensure that, where an unborn child was capable of being born alive, he or she would have been delivered alive, unless that course of action was not open to the treating doctors. We are left with a situation that there is currently no provision in the Bill requiring even a consideration of saving unborn life in an emergency situation. Surely it is not the aim that the child's life would be ended in such circumstances. It ought to be explicitly made clear that this is not the Bill’s aim. Adding in that clarification would have made no difference whatsoever to the right of a woman to receive the procedure in the circumstances given.

During the referendum, voters were repeatedly told that there would be no late-term abortion. The Minister told the Dáil: “It is important to be clear and truthful that, in cases where the foetus is viable, early delivery and the full range of neonatal care are the reality.”

It is impossible to conclude that the Minister has been truthful now in light of what the Bill now states.

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