Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I want to address the issue of Cavan General Hospital. This last bastion of safety for the unborn is now performing abortions. This means that all 19 maternity hospitals in Ireland will end the lives of preborn babies. This is happening despite the many pro-life doctors, nurses and other staff of the hospital who bravely stood by their belief in the Hippocratic oath to exercise ethical conduct and the core principle of doing no harm to patients in their care, often putting their principles before their own career advancement or promotion possibilities. In recent weeks, many staff have privately signalled their distress at this development, which involves the HSE bringing in new staff to carry out abortions. In 2018, the then Government promised voters that abortion would be rare. Almost seven years on it is far from rare, with more than 10,000 abortions each year. When you consider that this quite literally is a life and death issue, it is deeply troubling how little interest those who pushed so hard for repeal have in talking about the massive increase in abortions. In addition, there have been misdiagnosis errors, potential life-threatening complications, coerced abortion, women living with post-abortion regret and psychological burdens for hospital staff. It is strange how there is no outrage from self-professed liberal progressives for these terrible consequences. Doctors should not be mere tools of the State to be forced to violate their conscience in any way. This is a gross injustice to them, particularly in a democracy.

I ask that the Minister for Health adopt a different approach. It is a scandal that all the focus is on making abortion more widely available rather than putting supports in place so that no woman feels pressured to go down the road of abortion. The right to life is the defining human right issue of our time. That will continue to be the case regardless of what the law permits.