IRELAND should abolish its constitutional ban on abortion and stop “sending women to England” for terminations, a leading Irish maternity doctor has said.
Dr Rhona Mahony, the current Master of Holles Street Maternity Hospital, called for Ireland’s Eighth Amendment – which gives equal right to life to mothers and the unborn – to be repealed “for a variety of reasons relating to women’s health.”
Dr Mahony made her comments to a number of TDs and senators during a speech at the pre-Dail Labour Party think-in in Athy, Co. Kildare.
She said: "We cannot keep sending women to England pretending it doesn't happen.
"I favour a repeal of the eighth amendment for a variety of reasons relating to women's health.
“We have in Ireland terminations only when there is a substantial risk to the life of the mother that can be removed only by terminating the pregnancy.”
She said this poses great difficulties for doctors because they are making decisions based on “substantial” risks to women’s lives.
"We are making decisions based on risk, trying to quantify a risk and also in some cases we have to wait until a woman is sick enough to qualify,” Dr Mahony said.
“In some cases, that is medical roulette. The law deals with right – medicine deals with risk.”
Dr Rhona Mahony said doctors in Ireland are forced to play "medical roulette" with women's lives. (Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie)Dr Mahony said she was frustrated that the current law did not allow her to “care” for patients travelling to Britain abortions once they chose the option.
She said the act of travelling for those women was “stressful and risky” and that women are often separated from their family and friends during what is a demanding experience.
“The 2013 Protection of Life in Pregnancy Act had helped things. But it was very restrictive as it only provided for the “X-Case,” she explained.
Dr Mahony’s comments come as debate continues around a planned referendum on the contentious issue, which could occur as early as 2018.
Speaking in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he doesn’t agree that a “foetus should have no rights at all.”
He said: “As a doctor, I would perform pregnancy scans.
“And while I don’t accept the view that the unborn child, the fetus, if you prefer that term, should have equal rights to an adult woman, to the mother, I don’t share this view that the baby in the womb, the foetus, whatever term you want to use, should have no rights at all.”
He added: “And there are people who take the view that human rights only begin after you’re born and that a child in the womb with a beating heart, the ability to hear, the ability to feel pain, should have no rights whatsoever.
“I don’t agree with that”.
