Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. He may very well know that the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 ensures animals are given pain relief before procedures are carried out that could cause them pain and distress. There are two issues to note about that. The first is it is a matter of legislation, not of being left to medical experts, and the second is that yesterday, during the debate on the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) (Foetal Pain Relief) Bill 2021, which was brought before the Oireachtas, the Government tabled an amendment to delay or prevent its progression. The line coming from the Government is that it is a matter that should be left to clinical guidelines.

I think that is horrendous, particularly when one considers that all the dramatis personaeof recent years who pushed for change to our abortion laws, such as Dr. Peter Boylan, the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and all those organisations, have been completely silent on the question of precautionary pain relief. There can be only one explanation for that, namely, for those who see abortion as something desirable in the law, anything that suggests the humanity of the unborn child is to be avoided, even if that involves cruelty. That is a desperate situation and it cries out for legal remedy.

That is why it is vital that, in the context of the three-year review to take place of the abortion legislation, there be a strictly independent chairperson, not somebody, in the words of the Department of Health official, Ms Geraldine Luddy, appearing before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health last week, with and a sexual-and-reproductive-rights approach. That is code for buy-in to abortion. We are talking about a three-year review of abortion legislation, legislation which many people in this country oppose. Indeed, even some people who voted for repeal of the eighth amendment would think it goes too far in certain key respects. There has to be strict independence here; there cannot be thought control about this issue. That is why last week I recommended it be a judge or a retired judge. None of us is neutral on the subject of abortion - it is a life-and-death issue - but somebody such as a judge, who has had to make a career out of striving for neutrality and impartiality, might be best placed to chair this review. That is vital.

I have heard the Minister for Health make the point the policy has been decided and the legislation will not change but rather that this review is about examining the workings of the legislation. A closed-minded approach such as that, however, is never taken when there is a three-year review. The reason for a three-year review is to see whether anything in the legislation is counter-productive or is not working. What is working from some people's point of view will mean it does not sufficiently facilitate abortion, but for other people, what is not working is that, for example, it has led to a dramatic increase in the number of abortions.We know that to be the case, with 13,000 over the last two years. That is way in excess of the annual rates before it was legalised. This is something we did not know before, although many of us warned about that point in advance of the advent of legislation, and it must be relevant to a review.

Pre-eminently, though, I refer to something like pain relief and the case for precautionary pain relief in light of what the science now appears to be telling us about the capacity of the unborn child to feel pain in the context of later-term abortions. This aspect must be among the subjects to be reviewed. In circumstances where the Minister has not so far engaged with anybody who would regard themselves as a defender of the welfare of the unborn in this situation - and the Minister gave me a private verbal commitment that he would engage but we will have to see what that means - what is more important is that there be an independent chair of this review committee who will, as a matter of professionalism and determination, engage with all sides and not just with those who are happy with the abortion law and those who want more facility for abortion in this country, but also with those who wish to protect the unborn.

Therefore, this is not just an issue of life and death. It is a matter of fundamental human decency. In the reply from the Minister of State, I hope the Government will give a commitment that the chair of this review will be strictly independent and that means independent on the subject of abortion, as far as that is possible.