Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendment No. 1 and the speech that was made on it, and particularly the accusation that this Bill, overall, if we do not adopt amendment No. 1, will be akin to flirting with fascism. I want to be clear. These amendments are nothing to do with what Senator Mullen said about one third of people being ignored, about such people being unable to express their conscience and about these measures being an attack on freedom of speech. The intention behind the actions of people who stand outside maternity hospitals and clinics is to create a chill effect that ensures people are unable to access abortion services locally. That is why only 10% of GPs provide abortion services.

Senator Mullen spoke about "the abortion lobby". However, there is a worldwide pro-life, or anti-choice, grouping. We see the full might of them at the moment in Texas and Poland. Women have to drive for ten or 12 hours at a time to travel from Texas to neighbouring states. Now attempts are being made to bring in restrictive abortion laws in Oklahoma. This is not about freedom of expression. For 40 years, that lobby has chilled people into not providing healthcare for women. I want to be clear about that. It is healthcare in a healthcare setting.

As somebody who has had two pregnancies in six months, I got exactly the same treatment in both cases. It brought home to me, more than anything else, that this is healthcare. It is exactly the same provision one would get for a miscarriage or in other situations. It is not about ignoring one third of people. Nobody is forcing those people to do anything that is against their own body and against their own choice. They accuse us of flirting with fascism. They are being allowed to make that accusation in this House, exactly as they have done over the past 40 years in Ireland, from 1983 onwards. They are bedding in to create a chill effect with the aim of disallowing women from accessing basic healthcare in their local settings. Women are still travelling. They might be travelling intercounty, but they are still travelling in this country. How dare he accuse us of flirting with fascism?