Seanad debates

Monday, 10 December 2018

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

 

2:00 pm

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have absolutely no objection at all to what the Cathaoirleach said. I thank him for that. As I said, it was to say something that would avoid something being unnecessarily repeated ad nauseamlater on.

I had not actually spoken to amendment No. 15. I know the Minister gave his reply already, but I must disagree with him very strongly on this one. We need to read this amendment to section 10 in the context of the definition given in the legislation. The definition given in the legislation is of a "termination of pregnancy". It is defined as "a medical procedure which is intended to end the life of a foetus". I do not see how the Minister can say the amendment I am proposing can take us to a more restrictive situation than that which already obtains. It was the Minister himself who said before the referendum that there would be no late-term abortion. The Minister gave a campaign promise that post-viability babies would not be aborted. In the absence of the constitutional right to life of the unborn, it is all the more important for legislation to specify the duty not to directly attack the life of the unborn child in the post-viability stage.

The amendment I am proposing inserts the requirement for the child in question to be pre-viable for the purposes of any act or procedure that is intended to end his or her life. It is reckless in the extreme to allow this section to stand without any protection in the third trimester or the post-viability situation. To return to the question of what people voted on, they did not vote for a situation where a child in the third trimester could be subjected to a procedure that was intended to end his or her life. The normal practice is early delivery once a child is viable. There is nothing in this legislation to require early delivery.

The Minister, Deputy Harris, refers to the expertise of the medical practitioner. We know nothing about the expertise of the medical practitioner proposing to carry out a termination under this section. This is an extremely wide-ranging, vague and badly defined section that exposes unborn children to the risk of decisions that will be made to deliberately end their lives in the post-viability stage, because it lacks the requirement that the procedure can only occur prior to viability. What would happen post-viability? In contradiction to what the Minister has said about creating a more restrictive situation, we would revert to current normal medical practice, which is early delivery. There is nothing in this legislation or in this section that protects or requires early delivery. This is why the point I made earlier about the lack of a scientific basis for the idea that abortion has a therapeutic benefit in mental health situations is so important; because the entire debate so far has sought to disallow any discussion of when or where a health situation could genuinely and reasonably require or indicate an intervention of this kind.We have no distinction in the area of the definition of health but we have a problematic situation in Britain that has been defined by experts. Let me not be misunderstood as denigrating mental health, something which has been dishonestly said. Mental health is real and mental health problems are real. The question is whether abortion helps that situation. There is no evidence to suggest abortion improves a situation and there is a conflict of evidence about the situations where abortion may cause harm. That is the current best science on the subject. In the absence of a definition of health that confines us to bona fide medical situations and in the absence of a requirement that the intervention would not target the life of the unborn child in the post-viability stage, we are left with a very cruel and dangerous section which has to be changed if what the Minister said to the electorate is to have any reality. We need to conduct our discussion on the basis of close factual analysis. I have pointed out the problems and I really hope the Minister will change his position on this.

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