Who will pick up the bill for abortions if the Eighth is repealed?
TOMORROW we have a big decision to make. We have decades of experience of the Eighth Amendment and we know the damage it has done. Women of my generation paid the price for that amendment. We owe our daughters’ generation and future generations a better, safer future.
A future where they can make decisions about their own healthcare with the support of their doctors. A future where doctors can act in the best interest of their patients in all cases. A future based on compassion and care.
The Eighth Amendment has not stopped abortion. Abortion is a reality in Ireland today.
Irish women in crisis situations – including rape victims, women whose health is at serious risk and those with a diagnosis that their baby has no chance of survival – are travelling abroad every day.
Women are taking abortion pills without medical supervision, risking their lives and health – another tragedy waiting to happen. The Eighth Amendment has not stopped abortion but has punished women in the most tragic situations and put their lives and health at risk.
Women have died. Women’s health has been permanently impaired. Women and their families have been hurt and traumatised.
In these circumstances the Eighth Amendment compounds already-tragic situations – the so-called ‘hard cases’.
These cases are only made hard by the Eighth Amendment. If it was not in place, doctors would be able to do their jobs and women would have access to necessary healthcare.
We need to stop and think what happens when a young teenager, pregnant as a result of rape, needs an abortion. That girl is forced to travel abroad when she can barely face stepping outside her front door. She has no other option.
If her parents cannot afford the cost of travelling to Britain, what is she to do? What if this was your daughter, niece, granddaughter? What would you do?
As a political leader I believe we have a duty to support vulnerable people in crisis situations. The current situation is unacceptable. Women and girls in these situations deserve your Yes vote.
Unless we remove the Eighth Amendment, nothing will change for these women and girls.
I don’t believe that when people voted for the Eighth Amendment they intended to force families dealing with the trauma of a fatal foetal diagnosis to leave Ireland or continue with an unviable pregnancy. But this is what it has done.
Some families will decide to continue such a pregnancy and they should be given every support.
However, we must also support those who make a different choice and ensure that those who wish to terminate a pregnancy, where the baby has no chance of survival, can do so here in Ireland.
These families have spoken with great dignity about their personal grief and heartache. They are asking us to stop punishing tragedy – and we need to listen.
Unless we remove the Eighth Amendment we can do nothing for families with a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality.
Over the course of 35 years we have learned the hard way that you cannot reduce complex medical situations to two sentences in a Constitution.
The Eighth Amendment has impacted in particular on women with high-risk pregnancies or underlying medical conditions.
It has impacted on women experiencing a miscarriage, as was the case with Savita Halappanavar, who was denied an abortion that could have saved her life.
Savita died after doctors refused her a necessary procedure due to the legal ambiguity and uncertainty created by the Eighth Amendment. Women in such cases are often sent home terrified that they too may develop a serious, life-threatening infection.
Unless the Eighth Amendment is removed nothing can be done for women experiencing miscarriages, whose baby cannot survive, but who risk infection as doctors can’t act while a heartbeat remains.
The Eighth Amendment impacts on women who get a diagnosis of cancer while they are pregnant or who discover they are pregnant while receiving cancer treatment. M ICHELLE Harte was forced to travel for an abortion after her cancer treatment was stopped because she was pregnant. She was forced to travel for an abortion because the hospital decided there wasn’t an immediate threat to her life. She died in 2011.
No woman wants to have an abortion; but some women need an abortion.
While the Eighth Amendment remains, no change is possible. That means that I, as a legislator, can do nothing for families with diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality, for rape victims or for women with complex medical conditions whose health is at risk.
I trust that tomorrow care and compassion will prevail and Irish people will vote Yes to remove the Eighth Amendment.
Women’s health has been permanently impaired. Women and their families have been traumatised