Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think the first thing we have to do when speaking about this issue is to speak in a sensitive manner. I am not suggesting that colleagues to date have not done that but obviously there are people watching this debate who have a disability, or are the parents of children with a disability. During the course of the referendum campaign it caused me significant concern that there was an implication that the only reason some children were born with a disability in Ireland was because of the eighth amendment. I think that the mothers and fathers whom I know, and we all know them, who raise their children with such love, compassion, dedication and care for them more than anything else did not do that because of a line in the Constitution. Whether the Senator or I think it is a good or a bad line, they did it out of love. We need to be very careful that we do not suggest that anything we do in here or in the Bunreacht would determine the decisions those parents make. We debated this issue at length in the other House and it is right and proper that Senators can table it in this House as well, but I will not be accepting it for the same reasons that I outlined in the Dáil when a very similar amendment was put forward by Deputies. It is important to state that the Bill, as drafted, does not provide for terminations of pregnancy to be carried out on the grounds of sex, race or disability.

We need to be very careful going down this rabbit hole of suggesting that because the Bill does not say it means that it is allowed. That would be a very peculiar legal precedent. The Bill does not mention hair colour but it is not a ground for termination. By not including things in legislation, we are excluding them. This Bill sets out very clearly what is allowed, and what is not allowed is excluded. It is illegal. We will be getting to a debate later and I know I will disagree with some of my colleagues on this, but there are serious criminal sanctions when one breaks the law and carries out a termination, above and beyond those grounds as well.

The Bill does provide for a termination of pregnancy to be carried out only in cases where there is a risk to the life or serious harm to the health of the pregnant woman, where there is a risk to the life or serious harm to her health in an emergency, where there is a condition present which is likely to lead to the death of a foetus either before or within 28 days of birth or where the pregnancy has not exceeded 12 weeks. Ending the life of a foetus otherwise than in accordance with these provisions is an offence which may be prosecuted.

My starting point in the drafting of this legislation and then publishing a general scheme that the people of Ireland could consider before they voted, was what the all-party committee had looked at. The all-party committee made a very conscious decision and I have no doubt from watching those debates and reading the report that it was a conscious decision to exclude disability as a ground for termination. The decision of that committee was to exclude it.

The committee also made another very important finding. It made a recommendation that we should allow termination in early pregnancy up to 12 weeks without specific indication. My very honest assessment of this amendment is that it would intentionally or unintentionally make that early pregnancy head of this legislation inoperable. People have said already that people did not vote on the heads of the Bill. Maybe that is true and maybe it is not, who knows, but whether one was in favour or against the referendum, the issue of 12 weeks without specific indication or very crude and offensive language such as on demand, was put on posters and was debated up and down the length and breadth of the county so the people of Ireland were very much aware of it.