Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, although I have to say he came very close there. First of all, Minister, your strategy here is to come out fighting and to put on the false umbrage of the wronged politician. I did not insult you personally but I am certainly insulting what you are doing because it is the worst kind of public service to seek to crush dissent on a life-and-death issue in the way that you are doing. Shame on you, the Government and everybody involved with this tawdry legislation, which, I believe, may well be unconstitutional. Second, I insulted no woman. Anybody I know who has ever spoken up for the rights of the unborn child has always done so in ways that have sought to make the point clearly that the target of opposition to abortion should never be a woman, particularly as there may be a variety of circumstances that underlie an unexpected pregnancy and a person's response to it. Many of us who have engaged on this issue, perhaps for longer than the Minister has done, have always understood that abortion is something that does no favours to women and that the real target of the law here should be the abortionist, be they doctors or other providers of this terrible act. I do not see how the Minister can say I have insulted every woman in the country. It is typical of, as I said, his bluff and bluster on this issue when I know countless women who voted against repeal because they wanted to protect unborn girl children as well as unborn boy children. I do not believe Senator Keogan feels insulted by what I have to say.

The Minister's strategy is to come in here and by implication accuse me and other opponents of this legislation of being on board with other forms of oppression that have existed down through the years and which were undoubtedly to be condemned. He managed to bring up the Magdalen laundries, for example, and that is a strategy. How ironic. He talked about the women and babies who disappeared from our country. How ironic that the Minister should regret the disappearance of women and babies from our country in the past and how tragic that he does not see the irony that he and the Government are on board with disappearing babies in the ultimate way. We have seen since repeal a major increase in the annual incidence of abortion. I was trying to estimate it using figures the Government of the day gave before abortion was legalised and the figures we now know. There has been an increase of between 40% and 75%. That is a human rights crisis by anybody's standards. It shows type of groupthink, doublethink, doublespeak and Orwellian doublespeak being used when the Minister can put on the moral cloak and state his regret about the disappearance of babies from our country in the past while doing his utmost to ensure that there are no second thoughts to be had about abortion now. The Minister accuses me of insulting people - the doctors he did not name and the women he did not name - and saying they are liars. To my mind, that came very close to telling a lie because, first of all, I did not ever suggest that there are not people who make allegations here.