LETTER: Suggestions for Bill permitting abortion

SIR – The Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill 2018, currently before the Oireachtas Committee, should make provision for the following:

Choice – A well-publicised 24/7 service, for those who have immediate regret after taking the abortion pill. Its effects can be reversed within the first 24 hours and many children have been born as a result.

Information – Full disclosure ought to be the standard, with an opt-out rather than opt-in, for viewing the baby-scan, a description of the baby’s gestational development and the proposed method of destruction.

Support – A comprehensive, separately-funded counselling support network, ought to be made known and available at each appointment; as abortion is rarely the first preference of anybody. 

Feeling shocked, overwhelmed and pressurised, abortion is all too often the ‘only choice’ that circumstances and society seem willing to offer.

Consent – The role of parents/guardians ought to be respected where minors are involved.

Survivors – In those rare instances where the baby is delivered alive, and not dead as had been intended, they ought to be cared for as appropriate for any other prematurely-born baby.

Conscience – Nobody ought to be pressurised or duped into becoming an accomplice in what they consider to be gravely mistaken, inhumane and abhorrent.

Records – In order to make abortions rare, comprehensive data needs to be collected and made available.

Burial – Each mother ought to be offered the option of having their aborted baby buried with dignity at a designated, marked, accessible location, as this may help their journey toward healing.

Progress – In all 28 EU countries each generation is failing to replace itself. Citizens who do not wish to drive this unsustainable model, ought to be allowed to support life-affirming policies; only those who value abortion, ought to see their taxes diverted to support it.

Yours,

Gearóid Duffy,

Lee Road, 

Cork.