Seanad debates

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Report and Final Stages

 

6:00 pm

Photo of Ivana BacikIvana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Speaking on the passage of this historic Bill, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief, as do many colleagues and others watching the debate. At this historic moment, I am happy to speak on behalf of my Labour Party colleagues in the Seanad, Senators Kevin Humphreys, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and Ged Nash, and to say I am proud of the role the Labour Party has played over the 35 years the eighth amendment has been in place in our Constitution. My party campaigned against the inclusion of the eighth amendment in the first place, and members and activists of the party have been at the forefront of the repeal movement over many years as a pro-choice party. I want to mention my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, who was our representative on the Oireachtas committee on the eighth amendment and members of Labour Women in particular, who have led on this within the party.

I also thank the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, for his incredible leadership on this issue through the repeal campaign on the referendum and since then, in particular in the last few weeks in steering the Bill through both Houses. I thank his officials who were so committed and who have worked so hard on this. For their work in the last week, I thank the Seanad staff who facilitated such lengthy debates with such good humour.

I thank also the many activists who have played such a vital role in the campaign and acknowledge the presence in the Visitors Gallery of so many of them, including Together For Yes, led so ably by Ailbhe Smith, Grainne Griffin and Orla O'Connor. I was proud to have been a member of the steering group of Together For Yes and to have worked so closely with many of them. There are so many other groups. There is Women's Health in Ireland on which I and Deputies Kate O'Connell and Lisa Chambers worked with Senator Colette Kelleher and others on a cross-party basis to try to achieve a consensual approach to working on repeal. We worked with many other groups too, for example, Lawyers For Choice and the Irish Family Planning Association, which Senator Kelleher is correct to single out as it led for so many years on this issue. Termination For Medical Reasons also deserves a special mention because its members were to the forefront in putting out their very personal, private stories and really helping to change the way the debate was conducted, and always in such a respectful manner.

We also have to think of the process through which this has gone - the Citizens' Assembly, the Oireachtas committee, so ably chaired by Senator Catherine Noone, and, of course, the referendum campaign itself, leading to the historic 66.4% vote in favour of repeal. Certainly, if I had known nearly 30 years ago as a student threatened with prison under the eighth amendment that it would take this long to get to repeal, I would have been devastated. I do not think I would have believed I could have spent all my adult years growing up under the chill of the eighth amendment. I am conscious that, as students, we were affected by this but, of course, I am thinking now, as Senator Kelleher has been, of all the many women who have been so affected by this for so long, the 160,000 women who have had to travel, and the utterly tragic cases of women like Ms X, Savita Halappanavar, PP, the ABC women who took their case so bravely to the European Court of Human Rights, Amanda Mellet and Siobhan Whelan, and so many more unnamed, some of whose stories have been told but all of whom have suffered so much under the eighth amendment.

I am so glad that, at last, we have moved on and that we are passing this law or, rather, that it has passed - I still cannot get used to that - and that we will see services in place for women from 1 January, as promised by the Minister and as we said was our priority. It is important that we can now breathe a collective sigh of relief that we have moved on and passed a compassionate law, one which will at last enable our women to access free, safe and legal abortion where needed in crisis pregnancy. Who thought we would say that here in Ireland? I am so grateful that my daughters and all of our daughters will not have to grow up under the chill of the eighth amendment and that, at last, we are facing up to our responsibility and enabling women to access the healthcare we need here in our own country.

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