Abortion, Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, Politics, fine gael, labour, sinn fein

Abortion, Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, Politics, fine gael, labour, sinn fein

Peadar Toibin TD has stood firm in his position to protect unborn children, however, his proposed Amendment, to remove the 'suicide clause', was voted down. This clause effectively leaves the determination of the unborn child's life or death in the hands of psychologists and psychiatrists, two 'professions' that has shown themselves time and again to be able to reach polar conclusions in relation to the same case.  

Minister of State Lucinda Creighton has renewed her call for abortion time limits to be introduced where a foetus is viable.

In an amendment that she is expected to vote against the Government on and lose the Fine Gael party whip and her job, Ms Creighton said she wanted to protect viable life and bring in limitations on when terminations could be carried out.

“It would actually allay the genuine concerns of many of our citizens,” she said during the report stage debate on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, which resumed this evening.

“We know that in the vast majority of jurisdictions around the world where there are abortion regimes in place, far more liberal regimes of the type I hope we never see in this country, they do still enforce gestationsal limits, term limits for carrying out abortions,” the Dublin South East TD said. “I think that this is the minimum our citizens deserve.”

Two two amendments are currently under discussion in the debate.

The session began hours after the High Court refused to grant an injunction aimed at stopping provisions of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill being voted into law.

Labour TD Roisin Shortall also introduced amendments on gestational time limits and said it was unacceptable that there were none in the Bill. She said concern about the issue had been raised by Master of the Rotunda Sam Coulter Smith but there was no serious attempt made to address those concerns.

Fianna Fail health spokesman Billy Kelleher said he would oppose legislation if he thought for a moment if he somehow though that a baby at 34 weeks would be taken from the womb and destroyed.

Mr Kelleher said that if they talked about gestational limits, “we are pitting the life of the woman against the life of the baby” and “that would be repugnant to me and to the Constitution”.

He said the overriding issue at stake was the real and substantial threat to the life of the woman. “We cannot intervene to terminate the pregnancy because it would be in conflict with the legislation if we put in gestational limits.”

Minister of State for Health Alex White said there was no answering Mr Kelleher’s point.

Fine Gael TD Peter Mathews, who has already lost the party whip on the legislation, supported term limits. He said termination at 12 weeks was just as repugnant as a termination later in pregnancy.

In response, Ms Creighton said it was putting a time limit on the destruction on the life of the unborn and a clear obligation and onus on the medical profession to save the life of the unborn.

Minister for Health James Reilly and Mr Mathews clashed at the start of the debate this evening.

Mr Mathews asked the Minister to define what the term “as far as practicable” meant in terms of the medical situations that could arise under it.

Dr Reilly replied that it was an acceptable legal term which was well understood. “It is not clear to me,” said Mr Mathews.

Dr Reilly replied: “That is fine; you are neither legal nor a doctor.”

Mr Mathews replied that he was “a citizen”.

Earlier, the Minister moved a series of amendments which, he said, gave clarity to the medical definition of terms “in good faith” and reasonable opinion” in the Bill.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said there should be trust in doctors, adding that the amendments were just a concession to certain people who wanted to hold back and frustrate the legislation’s purpose which was to allow for a termination where there was a threat to the woman’s life.

Over 100 of the 165 amendments to the Bill have yet to be debated during the Report stage.

The Dáil is due to adjourn the abortion debate by midnight regardless of whether or not it has been passed. Taoiseach Enda Kenny said this morning if the Bill can conclude today, “so much the better”.

So far, two votes have been taken but neither relate to the amendments proposing a “pathway to care” plan for pregnant women with suicidal intent tabled by Ms Creighton. She voted with the Government on those two amendments at 2am and at 5am.

The High Court ex parte application was made by Jane Murphy, with an addresss at Milltown, Dublin 14 this afternoon and is expected to appeal Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns’ refusal to the Supreme Court.

She was accompanied in court by former MEP Kathy Sinnott and Mark McCrystal. In intended proceedings against the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health and the Government, Ms Murphy sought injunctions “to prevent the respondents usurping the will of the Irish people on the day of Thursday 11th of July 2013”.

The application stated the intention was to prevent the Government including two provisions in the Bill currently before the Oireachtas and also to prevent the vote on that Bill.

Mr Justice Kearns said he was satisfied he had no jurisdiction to grant any such relief. This matter was before the legislature and the court, under the doctrine of the separation of powers, had no entitlement to deal with it. He did not believe the court, at this stage of the matter, had any entitlement to interfere.

Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said this morning that if the President referred the Bill to the Supreme Court it would be “the right decision”. Many parts of the Bill would be challenged by people coming from different perspectives, he said. “If he refers it, it can just be either cleared or struck down once and for all with no further challenges. If he did I think that would be the right decision. But that’s entirely his prerogative not mine,” he told RTÉ Radio.

Earlier today Mr Kenny defended the late overnight sitting in the Dáil. He said there were “some very good contributions” and it was “no harm that it went to 5am”.

However, Fianna Fáil leader Michael Martin described the organisation of the overnight debate as “shambolic” and “lamentable”.

The Labour Party was thrown into disarray early this morning by the shock defection of its Clare TD Michael McNamara in a vote .

In dramatic scenes just before the debate on the Bill was adjourned, Mr McNamara voted against the Government on an amendment tabled by the technical group which called for abortions to be allowed in cases where there were fatal foetal abnormalities or inevitable miscarriages.

However, the party maintained later that Mr McNamara would not lose the whip as he had made a “genuine mistake” and had pressed the wrong button. Tánaiste and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore was not in the Dáil for the vote as he is abroad on Government business.

Following the announcement yesterday by two Mayo TDs John O’Mahony and Michelle Mulherin that they would support the Bill, the other TD whose voting intentions were in doubt - John Paul Phelan of Carlow-Kilkenny - also confirmed to the Dáil at 1.30am that he too would be supporting the legislation despite having misgivings about the Bill.

His confirmation that he would support the Government - which was widely expected - has left a total of five Fine Gael TDs at odds with the party on this Bill. Besides Ms Creighton, the other TDs are Mr Mathews, Brian Walsh, Billy Timmins and Terence Flanagan.

The Labour Party had, until Mr McNamara’s vote, shown a strong party discipline and had consciously maintained a slightly background stance, because of the sensitivities of Fine Gael’s position.

The defection of Mr McNamara, even if Labour manages to repair its hand and reverse it, has damaged that show of unity and also dampened what was considered a successful effort by the Fine Gael leadership to contain its defections to a maximum of five TDs.

The debate on the report stage of the Bill commenced at 11.30am yesterday and continued for a cumulative total of 14 hours after the Taoiseach said he wished the Dáil to complete its deliberation of it by this morning. However, with no guillotine in place, Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe initially announced an extension until midnight, and then until 5am.

The Bill was scheduled to transfer to the Seanad today but that will not now happen until tomorrow at the earliest.

The first substantive vote - to reject an amendment tabled by Peadar Tóibín of Sinn Féin to remove the suicide clause in its entirety - was carried by 135 to 24 votes.

Many Independents voted with the Government but Maureen O’Sullivan, Michael Lowry, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath voted against.

The vote was taken after more than eight hours of debate on a group of 38 amendments from a number of TDs, dealing with the suicide clause, where termination is permissible to avoid suicide.