So said David Cullinane, Sinn Fein’s current spokesperson on health during the Dáil debate in December 2021 on Carol Nolan’s Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) (Foetal Pain Relief) Bill 2021.
Yet, as we all know now, when the time came to support a Bill that sought this very thing, no legislative mercy was shown.
He and his party decided instead along with every other opposition party (with the exception of Aontu) to support a government amendment refusing a further reading of the Bill, thereby ultimately ensuring its defeat by 107 votes to 36.
The Bill itself was a relatively conservative piece of legislation.
It sought the administration of anaesthetic or analgesic to an unborn child where there were reasonable grounds for believing that the child had reached or exceeded 20 weeks of pregnancy or where it was otherwise likely that pain would be caused to the child during the late term abortion procedure.
One of the key grounds upon which the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly chose to rationalise the rejection of the Bill was that government needed time to allow the 3-year review of the 2018 abortion act to be completed and for its recommendations to be considered.
At that time the Review process was just beginning. This is what he said at the time:
“Let us see what those recommendations may be. They may be operational. There may be recommendations relating to regulation or the Act itself. Those who would seek to change the Act or service provision in any direction, whether to be more conservative or more liberal, need to give the review the space it needs to do its work and report back to us so that we can take appropriate action.”
So, while much of the attention on the Review has concentrated on the possible abolition of the 3-Day reflection period, or the threats to conscientious objection, what did the Review have to say on the issue of foetal pain relief when it was finally published in February 2023?
Here is the only direct reference, in all its tragic starkness:
“The issue of whether pain relief is desirable for the foetus undergoing foeticide has been raised in the Dáil and in the Seanad. As the Chair is not a medical practitioner, this issue is not within her field of competence. However, the opinions of two fetal medicine specialists and one obstetrician were ascertained as part of the Review and their views were that the administration of pain relief was not required.”
Who these specialists were we are not told. Were they or do they continue to be members of or associates of the abortion campaigning medics who make up the Southern Task-Force On Abortion & Reproductive Topics (START).
STARTS lobbying returns certainly show that it engaged intensively as part of the Review process to address what it described as “the shortfalls in the current legislation eg safe access zones, poor access to provision in certain parts of the country among other things.”
What I can say with a high degree of probability is that no attempt was likely made to contact eminent foetal specialists such Professor Stuart Derbyshire and Dr John Bockmann, who in their 2020 article published in the influential Journal of Medical Ethics, found there was “good evidence” that the brain and nervous system, which start developing at 12 weeks’ gestation, are sufficient enough for the baby to feel pain.”
Perhaps what we have here is a potential duplication of the absurdity that emerged following the admission by the Chair of the Review, Ms Marie O’Shea that she was ‘not aware’ of any other jurisdiction where a three-day waiting period was in place.
This was despite the fact, as Megan Ní Sceallaín of Life Institute has pointed out, mandatory waiting periods are part of abortion regulation in more than 10 European countries.
At the very least the Chair of the Review needs to demonstrate and she must be asked if she or her research team “ascertained as part of the Review” any other specialist opinions regarding the necessity of foetal pain relief legislation. For now the whole issue seems to hinge on the say-so of three unnamed specialists.
The whole episode from beginning to end has been rather shameful when you think about it.
It is time to re-open the debate on foetal pain relief legislation.
*Co-sponsors of the Bill Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae, Mattie McGrath, Richard O’Donoghue, Seán Canney, Éamon Ó Cuív, Peter Fitzpatrick, Noel Grealish and Peadar Tóibín,