Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister presents it as a reasonable balance but it is not at all reassuring. How could it be when there was so little consultation? The Minister broke the news on radio to GPs that his abortion regime would be GP-led. Before his announcement, he never consulted rank-and-file GPs around the country about turning their surgeries into abortion clinics and forcing them to become facilitators of abortion through referral. Since his initial announcement, he has refused point blank to engage with ordinary GPs and is well aware that more than 640 GPs have signed a petition raising very serious concerns about his proposal and that nurses, midwives and pharmacists have done likewise. I find it extraordinary that the Minister would not afford these hard-working healthcare workers even one minute of his time, yet from 1 January, any GP who refuses to facilitate abortions in line with the Minister's extreme law runs the risk of being struck off the medical register and losing his or her job. There really are no words to describe this travesty.

I know a doctor who felt under intense pressure to abort her daughter when working in England seven years ago. She has first-hand experience of what a conveyer belt abortion system results in - rushed decisions followed by immense regret - but her personal experience counts for nothing under the Minister's new law. From 1 January, she will have to get in line with his abortion law or face being struck off the medical register. I can assure the Minister that she has no intention of being coerced into going against her conscience and there are hundreds of healthcare workers just like her. They are not going to surrender their clinical judgement and lifetime of experience in assisting women with unexpected pregnancies in the sensitive, compassionate and non-judgemental way they do. They feel they are being bullied by this Government and the Minister to do something that goes against every fibre of their being. That should be enough to give the Minister concern, because they are right. They are being bullied. Calling doctors, nurses and midwives rogue practitioners simply because they disagree with the Minister and want to practise evidence-based medicine is outrageous and wrong. Forcing decent, hard-working and conscientious-----