ABORTION BILL IS DANGEROUS, UNJUST AND IRRETRIEVABLY FLAWED
PROTECTION OF LIFE DURING PREGNANCY BILL 2013
ABORTION BASED ON A THREAT OF SUICIDE CANNOT BE RESTRICTIVE
The Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 is dangerous, unjust and irretrievably flawed.
Abortion on the basis of suicidal ideation can never be restrictive. Psychiatrists would be put in an impossible situation where they cannot refuse abortion at any stage, because there is no way of predicting whether the woman will carry out her threat.
The brutal lesson from other countries which introduced laws like this – hoping they would be restrictive – is that they inevitably led to wide-ranging abortion. The Bill introduced by the Government is sure to repeat these mistakes. The Government’s repeated assurances that the Bill is somehow restrictive are meaningless. The only thing that matters is what’s in the Bill, and what’s in the Bill is abortion on potentially very wide grounds.
SECTION 9 OF THE BILL Section 9 of the Bill provides for abortion on the suicide ground in line with the Supreme Court judgment in the X case. By allowing abortion for a threat of suicide, the Government would be legislating for a ‘treatment’ that is not evidence-based. It is widely accepted that it is impossible to predict suicide accurately and that abortion exposes some women to future mental health problems. Far from protecting women’s lives, the Government would potentially be putting women’s lives at risk, if it legislates on the basis of the X case ruling. There is no other situation in our lives where a threat of suicide makes legal what would otherwise be illegal. It would be a monstrous injustice to allow this to happen where the consequences will be the killing of an innocent unborn child.
Under the proposed new law, for an abortion to be approved on the basis of a threat of suicide it will require two psychiatrists and an obstetrician to sign off on it. In reality, however, it will be the two psychiatrists who make the final decision. If they are in agreement, the obstetrician’s opinion will be redundant. We have seen how the requirement to have the signatures of two doctors in the UK has been widely abused, to the point where they have an abortion on demand regime. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent psychiatrists who view abortion as harmless from seeking like-minded colleagues to affirm the certification for an abortion. The result is that healthy pregnant women, who do not suffer from any mental illness, would have access to an abortion where they threaten to kill themselves and their case is handled by psychiatrists who do not believe abortion has any adverse consequences or who believe abortion is a woman’s right.
"There are significant concerns in all areas of the medical profession in relation to this Bill when it comes to suicidality. Our overriding concern relates to the lack of evidence to show that termination of pregnancy is an appropriate treatment for women who are deemed to be at risk of suicide. As obstetricians we are expected to practice evidence-based interventions and first and foremost to do no harm". Dr Sam Coulter Smith, Master of the Rotunda Hospital, at the Oireachtas Hearings on Abortion, Friday 17th May 2013
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE According to New Zealand’s Abortion Supervisory Committee, the permissibility of abortion on the ground of serious danger to mental health was very precisely defined in New Zealand law, “but the wording has come to have a de facto liberal interpretation.” In California, the number of abortions skyrocketed once abortion was permitted on the supposedly restrictive ground that “the woman is dangerous to herself or to the person or property of others or is in need of supervision or restraint”. Within three years, 98.2% of abortions (61,572) were on this ground.
SECTIONS 10-14 OF THE BILL The review panel cannot prevent abuses because it only has a role when abortion has been refused. There is no appeal on behalf of the life of the unborn child. So, if anything, the review panel will mean that extra abortions take place.
PRETENCE OF PROTECTION FOR UNBORN
ABORTION LAW WILL RADICALLY CHANGE OUR CULTURE
What the Bill really offers is not protection but just the pretence of protection for the life of the unborn child. Objectionable at every stage, the procedures envisaged in late pregnancy are grotesque and obscene. For the baby at 22 or 23 weeks, already fully formed, needing only a week or two to reach viability and a fair chance to reach birth and citizenship, the Bill, unbelievably, offers no protection against being legally killed.
Our laws exercise an important educative effect in society. Without abortion, Ireland is among the safest places in the world for a woman to be pregnant. At the same time, our legal culture prohibiting abortion has had a positive effect on our culture. Our abortion rates are a fraction of those in Britain, taking our different population sizes into account. More children with disabilities, like Down Syndrome, are born in Ireland than in Britain because of our different attitudes to abortion.
For the baby on the cusp of viability from around 24 weeks on, the Bill, again unbelievably, proposes a medically contraindicated and unnecessary early induction that puts the baby at risk of serious harm, such as brain damage, blindness or even death. Despite the claim that the life of the baby is protected, the horrible reality of the Bill is that where the woman insists that it is the existence of the baby, and not just the pregnancy, that is the cause of her suicidality, her insistence trumps the baby’s right to life every time, even though the procedure is not based on any medical evidence whatsoever. In such a situation, under the Bill, abortion is permissible up to birth.
If abortion is introduced, this culture will change. Many unborn lives will be needlessly lost and many women will suffer for years after their abortion decision. There will be a hardening of our culture.
Even if the Bill were amended to include a time limit, the X case still stands and so the time limit could be bypassed and legally challenged. And by way of final insult, each of these horrors would take place despite the fact that there isn’t a shred of evidence that abortion in the case of threatened suicide brings any benefit to the woman. All of this highlights the astonishing lack of consideration for the unborn child by those in government championing the proposal. It is shameful beyond words that some politicians even have the nerve to call the proposed legislation ‘pro-life’.
IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY Ireland can find ways to provide the means of supplying the necessary legal and regulatory clarity without legislating for the X case. For 21 years, we have not had abortion in Ireland precisely because we did not legislate for the X case. Once the principle has been conceded that it is permissible to deliberately destroy an innocent life, there is no going back. To defeat the Government’s proposal, pro-life supporters must continue to be insistent but dignified and never lose heart in opposing legislation for abortion. Pro-life politicians must also take a stand. Otherwise, this irredeemably flawed abortion Bill will become law in a matter of weeks.
This briefing document only addresses sections 9-14 of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 dealing with abortion on the ground of threatened suicide. There are many other flaws with the Bill.
104 Lower Baggot Street Dublin 2, Ireland 01 6629275 info@prolifecampaign.ie www.prolifecampaign.ie
Pro Life Campaign - 18-06-13