FG IN TURMOIL OVER ABORTION
Coveney under fire from colleagues over stance on the Eighth, as Tánaiste is accused of ‘muddying the waters’ and confusing voters
CRACKS are starting to appear in Fine Gael over the thorny issue of the Eighth Amendment – with Simon Coveney under fire from party colleagues after he objected to abortion on demand up to 12 weeks.
In a move that has created a significant divide with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste said he would support repealing the Eighth – but that the State has an obligation to protect the unborn child.
This sparked strong criticism from Fine Gael Senator Catherine Noone, who accused the Foreign Affairs Minister of offering ‘an Irish solution to an Irish problem’. However, Mr Coveney’s
view is understood to have the support of ministers including Michael Creed, Michael Ring and Heather Humphreys.
Mr Coveney said terminations should be allowed in cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormalities and when a mother’s life or health is at risk – and suggested that one doctor should be able to sanction an abortion after a consultation with the woman.
However, speaking on RTÉ’s Today With Seán O’Rourke programme yesterday, he said he did ‘not accept’ that abortion in cases of rape and incest would be impossible to legislate for – which paved the way for the 12-week recommendation as a type of catch-all.
‘Some of the legal experts who were before this [Oireachtas] committee [on the Eighth Amendment] said it was difficult to do this, but not impossible,’ he said.
He suggested he would attempt to amend the legislation to bring it in line with his beliefs. However, his intervention threatened to create a damaging three-way divide in Fine Gael, with liberals condemning his proposals as unworkable and conservatives saying they are unacceptable.
One Fine Gael TD responded to his interview with a ‘hail of curses and slammed doors,’ a source said. Senator Catherine Noone also criticised her party colleague, tweeting: ‘All expert evidence
‘Rape is impossible to legislate for’
shows that rape is impossible to legislate for, not to mention the fact that abortion pills are readily available in this country.’ She said Mr Coveney’s alternative solution – having a register of expert GPs who could confidentially determine if a woman had been raped – did not ‘make any sense in the context of women’s health’.
She later told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘The Tánaiste is entitled to his opinion but unfortunately what he said is not borne out by the facts that were established at the committee.’
Mr Coveney’s views are also at odds with those of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Health Simon Harris, who want to implement almost all of the committee’s recommendations, including the proposal to allow abortion on demand up to 12 weeks.
A number of members of the committee were angry at his comments, which they see as confusing the public ahead of the expected May referendum on the Eighth Amendment.
Sinn Féin health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly, who sat on the committee, said she was amazed Mr Coveney had not put together a more concise view before going on national radio.
‘I think if you were sitting at home listening to that you would find it massively confusing. The Tánaiste is trying to appeal to both sides,’ she said. ‘It does nothing but muddy the waters and in a referendum that is the last thing you want. There has to be clarity.’
Another committee member said: ‘It’s disappointing, he is muddying the waters. In a way it’s kind of insulting to the committee, because we spent a long time working to get the facts, listening to expert evidence and investigating all the possibilities. And in one fell swoop he’s undermined that.
‘You can’t call yourself pro-repeal and not back the Government’s position, because that position is the result of a long and extensive examination of the facts.’
To give an idea of what the replacement legislation will entail if the Eighth is repealed, heads of the Bill will be published in tandem with the wording of the referendum before the end of March.
However, it will not be debated in the Dáil until after the referendum is held, and provided that a
‘Must be laid out in black and white’
‘Yes’ vote is returned. The lack of clarity on what the final Bill will look like before the referendum is held therefore makes it harder to predict how TDs will vote on it.
Peter Fitzpatrick, a pro-life Fine Gael TD who also sat on the committee, told the Mail the debate is getting ‘more confusing’ every day. He said: ‘People like the Tánaiste, Michael Ring and Michael Creed are saying one thing, the Government are saying another, and that’s confusing the issue.’
Mr Fitzpatrick said the Government ‘needs to lay out in black and white what the wording is going to be’. However, Junior Minister Pat Breen offered some support for the Tánaiste, saying his alternative proposals had merit and deserved to be looked at.
Referencing a personal tragedy, Mr Breen outlined the importance of legislators differentiating their own experiences from the public’s best interests. He said: ‘My concerns relate back to my own personal stories that I have on my own side, where I lost a little baby daughter born at 21 weeks… and it’s something I don’t talk about in public too often.
‘But it does affect me still, and that’s why I suppose I have to try and separate my personal story with that as a legislator and to say that, listen, what I want to do… [is] what is the best interest of society at the moment and that’s where I wear my legislative hat.’
Meanwhile, Heather Humphreys told her local radio station Northern Sound yesterday that she supports repeal, but has not made up her mind on the 12-week recommendation.