Little change on abortion - Village Magazine

August/September VILLAGE

provisions for an independent committee

to make decisions on treating those with

“suicidal intent”, which was a key demand

among campaigners for reform.

Anti-choice campaigners focused so much

on the issue of suicide, because the state

was obliged to provide access for women

with sucidal ideation by the X case. The

Government could have legislated in good

faith to make access available for those enti-

tled to a legal abortion in the state. Instead

they bowed to pressure from a vocal minor-

ity, introducing a process that will inevitably

fail vulnerable women.

If a GP agrees, he or she will refer the

woman to three doctors – including one

obstetrician and two psychiatrists – who

will decide whether there is a real risk to the

woman’s life through suicide. If her request

is rejected, she will go through an appeal sys-

tem involving another two psychiatrists and

another obstetrician.

Veronica O’Keane, professor of psychia-

try at Trinity College Dublin, said the rules

would leave women “at the mercy of a local,

moral and political lottery”. The United

Nations Human Rights Committee, consid-

ered they constituted “an excessive degree of

scrutiny by medical professionals”. Yet this

is what we are told the law prescribes.

Meanwhile the profession’s own Medical

Council Guide which used to say it was not

lawful to “advocate or encourage an abor-

tion” even in case of risk of suicide or to life

now weirdly – and unlawfully it would ironi-

cally appear – merely makes it unlawful in

the event that information is being provided

with regard to abortion abroad.

T h e q u i et c h a ng e t o

the Medical Council’s

Guide in January

does though, for the

ﬁrst time, assert the

lawfulness of abor-

tion in the event of a risk to the life of the

mother, a risk which while substantial may

not be immediate or inevitable.

Professionals are now, as they always

were, unable legally to intervene to manage

miscarriage, or to manage a risk to health

that could include heart, vascular and pul-

monary disease, extensive hernias and

benign tumours.

Cathie Doherty is

spokesperson for

the Abortion Rights

Campaign.

risk to health evolves into a risk to life.

The PLDPA perpetuates the systematic

ignoring of the agency, the autonomy, of

the pregnant woman. During the inquest

into the death of Savita Halappanavar, the

jury heard that she would probably still be

alive today if the law had allowed the abor-

tion she asked for, as she miscarried, before

there was a real risk to her life – when it was

too late to save her. Though the coroner was

keen to clarify that the medical deﬁcien-

cies were not in themselves responsible for

her death, the clinical Director of Holles

St National Maternity Hospital, Dr Peter

Boylan, noted: “The real problem was the

inability to terminate the pregnancy prior

to Ms Halappanavar developing a real and

substantial risk of death. By that time it was

eﬀectively too late to save her life”.

Indeed a draft of a ‘Guidance Document for

Health Professionals from the Department

of Health’, which has yet to be made public

but was obtained by the Guardian newspa-

per, is more assertively anti-abortion than

last year’s law.

In its introduction, the docu-

ment states that “the purpose

of this act is to restate the gen-

eral prohibition on abortion in

Ireland” (while regulating for

the X and A, B and C cases). Later

it notes that the act provides “a

clear criminal prohibition on

abortion” (with one exception).

The Guidance will give power to

doctors, obstetricians and psy-

chiatrists to prevent vulnerable

women from terminating their

pregnancies.

It would be interesting to see

the forces behind the Guidance

for they do not reﬂect the prevail-

ing ethos in , or indeed even

the constitution and last year’s

legislation. The document itself

was compiled by the Department

of Health “in collaboration with

a multi-disciplinary committee

of experts”, comprising repre-

sentatives of the usual worthy professional

bodies with an independent chair, Dr Declan

Bedford.

The -page guide does not include

BORTION remains sidelined in this

society, and others, to the point

where it is almost impolite to raise

the issue – which is “divisive”, “already dealt

with” or “an ongoing debate”. But when you

start to look at the reality of the law you

realise it is “ongoing debate”, that has pre-

vailed, with no government action to move

forward despite last year’s legislation, and

every risk of more hard cases that will show

up the gaps in our law. Although there have

been reports of abortions under the new

legislation, senior doctors have refused to

conﬁrm this. Indeed it is unclear whether

there were abortions before the legislation

was introduced. Such egregious obfusca-

tion can only suggest a failure of empathy

for women’s rights.

It is despite the fact that opinion polls,

such as one last June, show that a majority

favours broadening access to abortion. The

Ipsos/Mori poll in the Irish Times records

very strong majorities in favour of abortion

in the case of risk to the women’s life (%)

and health (%); fatal foetal abnormal-

ity (%); and rape and abuse (%); and a

small majority (%) in the event or a threat

of suicide.

However, in a shocking subversion of the

democratic will of the people, the subsequent

passing of the Protection of Life During

Pregnancy Act (PLDPA), after a lengthy and

fractious debate, in fact changed very little

for abortion-seekers in Ireland. While it pro-

vides for terminations when there is a “real

and substantial” risk to the life of a preg-

nant woman, even on its face the law does

not provide for abortion in the case or rape

or incest, or in the case of fatal foetal dis-

orders; and most of all it does not provide

for abortions in the event of a risk to health,

creating a dangerous environment where

medical intervention is delayed while the

Government guidelines for doctors restate a “general prohibition on abortion”.

By Cathie Doherty

Little change on abortion

ABORTION POLITICS

If a GP agrees,

he or she

will refer the

woman to

three doctors.

If her request

is rejected,

she will go

through an

appeal system

involving

another two

psychiatrists

and another

obstetrician

“