Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 47:

In page 15, lines 7 to 9, to delete all words from and including “Subject” in line 7 down to and including “or 12” in line 9 and substitute the following:“A medical practitioner, nurse or midwife shall not be obliged to carry out or to participate in carrying out a termination of pregnancy in accordance with section 9, 11 or 12 ”.

On Committee Stage in the Dáil on 6 November, the Minister, Deputy Harris, stated:

The Medical Council regulates our doctors, not me and not the Oireachtas. It tells our doctors how they are to behave and also provides for serious sanctions if our doctors do not behave in that way.

This is an extraordinary statement, considering what section 22 does as it stands. Under section 22 as it stands, it is the Oireachtas, or rather the Minister and the Government by diktat, which tells doctors how to behave. It is the Oireachtas which will compel doctors to choose between performing or participating directly in an abortion, or participating indirectly by referral onwards. This is explicitly what is provided for in the legislation.

The Medical Council did not seek this provision. The Minister and the Government did. As such, for the Minister to say, as he did in the committee proceedings, that the Medical Council tells doctors how to behave is just doublespeak. I listened to the Minister's contributions in the Dáil on freedom of conscience. He seems to contend that the law on conscientious objection is not being changed here because a similar duty to refer exists where all other treatments and procedures are concerned. However, that conveniently ignores the fact that the procedures and treatments that are legal in this country are changing radically. It makes no sense to state the law on conscientious objection has not changed when the context in which it is to apply has changed hugely. We are no longer talking about medically beneficial procedures. We are talking about procedures that kill innocent human beings in the early stages of their lives.

This is the first legal procedure by which a patient's life can be deliberately ended. In the words of the Bill, the procedure is designed to "end the life of a foetus", or the unborn child. This ends the two-patient model which has operated so successfully in Ireland for decades.The 2016 edition of the Medical Council's Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners states, at clause 48.1: "You have an ethical duty to make every reasonable effort to protect the life and health of pregnant women and their unborn babies." This statement could not be any clearer. Doctors have an ethical duty to protect the lives of women and their unborn children. The Medical Council told the health committee last October that it is revising these guidelines in light of the referendum and the legislation. I do not envy it that task.