Harris plans free contraception

All-party committee on the Eighth said that more contraception would lead to fewer seeking abortion

IRISH women may soon get free contraception, Simon Harris said yesterday.

Currently, only women with medical cards qualify for the service.

However, the call for change began when the Oireachtas committee that examined our abortion rules found that ‘for those on the cusp of qualifying for a medical card, the costs can be prohibitive’.

The committee also argued that ‘link between greater use of contraception and lower pregnancy termination rates’ was frequently raised during its hearings.

The Health Minister said officials in his department are examining proposals to make contraception free for all women.

He is expected to bring a report to Cabinet in a month.

Mr Harris said he would be ‘seeking approval for a series of measures to further support women and improve access to counselling, contraception and perinatal care’.

Caroline Simons, legal consultant to the Pro-Life Campaign, said she would not comment on the proposal as their campaign ‘deals with one issue, and one issue only and that is the abortion question, the protection of life from conception until natural death’.

Cora Sherlock, who is also part of the Pro-Life Campaign, said their campaign has a ‘specific role’. She said the proposal was ‘are very much an afterthought at this stage of the debate’.

Mr Harris revealed the plan to the Dáil yesterday, as he officially introduced proposals for a referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

He said the Government wants to allow abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy without specific indication. The referendum is expected to take place at the end of May.

He said: ‘If this Oireachtas facilitates a referendum, I will be casting my ballot for repeal and asking others to do the same because I cannot live any longer with a law that sees a woman or a girl, who has been brutally raped, forced to continue her pregnancy or travel to another country if she cannot.’ He acknowledged the changes would hard for some people to come to terms with.

‘I accept they represent a quantum leap from our position on the spectrum today, where we have one of the most restrictive regimes in relation to termination and I think are pegged somewhere in and around where Saudi Arabia is on the issue,’ he said.

He said their should be a brief delay between an assessment by a medical practitioner, and an abortion being carried out. This brief would allow women to consider all the options before making an informed decision.

TDs debated the draft legislation for five hours yesterday. Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman Billy Kelleher said women were being treated as second-class citizens.

‘The minute an Irish woman becomes pregnant, she no longer has destiny over her own healthcare. The first thing we have to do, if we are to bring about change, is to repeal Article 40.3.3.’

Independent TD Mattie McGrath said he was disgusted by how the Government was introducing its referendum plans.

He said: ‘The manner in which the Government has dealt with this amendment Bill has been nothing short of disgraceful. There’s been no rationale offered to why the entire process has had to lead to a mad rush towards May 25, as the date of the proposed referendum that will strip unborn children of all constitutional protection if the Eighth is removed.’

He added that the opposition of GPs would make the situation unworkable.

Labour’s Joan Burton said: ‘We, the women of Ireland, inherited a republic of misogyny, a republic of cruelty, and an Oireachtas, a Dáil and Seanad that has been, and in many cases still is, a cold place for

‘A mad rush towards May 25’

women and girls. The Labour Party was very clear in 1983 that the Eighth Amendment was the wrong amendment for our Constitution and for Ireland, for the people of Ireland and particularly for the women of Ireland. Instead of doctors and midwives providing the best of maternal care to women, instead what we have had is decisions about women’s care moving to the hands of lawyers and courts.’

Minister Harris began his speech by asking people to imagine the journey of an Irish woman flying to the UK for an abortion.

He said: ‘I thank colleagues for being here when they might have imagined themselves being elsewhere. I ask, as we sit here in these comfortable brown leather chairs in a somewhat abstract environment, for the somewhere else we imagine to be the ports and airports of this country, whether in Cork, Waterford, Dublin, Shannon or elsewhere, where a woman one could know is waiting to go to another country.

‘She might be sitting quietly next to the hen party, the businessman or businesswoman, or the honeymooners, seeming to be on a similar journey, but she is not.

‘Even if she might have a girlfriend or a partner with her, her journey is a lonely one.

‘No matter what her circumstances, she cannot access the care she needs in her own country. She may have been raped. She may have words of congratulations and questions about when she is due ringing in her ears, even as she knows she is carrying a baby with a fatal condition but feels she cannot say.

‘Do we imagine that whatever her circumstances that this is a journey or a decision she is undertaking lightly? This is a reality today for at least nine women in this country as we sit here in the comfort of Dáil Éireann.’

Mr Harris also praised those who had raised the need to liberalise Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws.

He told the house: ‘We are here because of the courage of women like Amanda Mellet, Siobhán Whelan and so many others who publicly relived the worst moments of their lives to make us to think about why change is needed in this

‘A republic of misogyny’

country. We are here knowing the tragedy which befell Savita Halappanavar and her family. We remember you, Savita,’ he said.

‘We remember Miss X. We remember Miss A, B, C and D. We remember Miss Y. We remember Miss P. We think, and we must think, of all the thousands of women from every county in Ireland who have made those lonely journeys to other countries at times of crisis in their lives because we have let them down. We think of the women who now face these crises alone and unsafe, with pills purchased online rather than with the safe medical care they need.

‘I have heard from doctors that women are being harmed or are at risk as I speak by taking unregulated abortion pills.’