Grasping the nettle

Political correspondent Mary Regan speaks to a Labour TD anxious that, after 20 years of successive Dáils avoiding the topic, this Government legislates on the issue of abortion

WITH a Dáil motion on the issue due next week, followed shortly by a Government commissioned expert group report, the topic of abortion will soon be back on the political agenda.

The Dáil’s youngest female TDs, Ciara Conway, expects the issue to be “polarising” but she thinks it’s time politicians stopped being afraid and finally faced up to it.

One year on from the general election, the first time TD remembers her first night out canvassing.

“I was in a housing estate and of the 100 odd houses that I canvassed that night, it came up on six doorsteps that abortion is synonymous with the Labour Party and people had huge fears and anxieties about that.

“I explained to them that the Labour Party position is that we believe that the X Case should be legislated for. The highest court in the land has said it here, the European Court has said it and yet we have failed to implement it.

“It’s not about advocating that everybody should have an abortion. People distort the argument so much. I really want to make clear to people that it’s about offering women and men or whoever may be involved, a choice.”

Ms Conway knows the feeling of fear that can grip women, particularly young girls, who experience a crisis pregnancy.

“I know myself the fear and the worry. I was 20 when I got pregnant. I was in my final year in college. Everybody has this feeling of ‘oh my god, how am I going to tell my parents’ and it’s a huge anxiety.

“I chose to have my daughter and I’m very happy and delighted with my decision. But not all women or girls could do that. I think we should be allowed to have that choice.”

Particularly in the case of abuse or rape, she believes, women should be able to make that choice.

It is 20 years ago this month since the Supreme Court said this should be so. It overturned a previous ruling by the High Court which had prevented a suicidal 14-year-old rape victim from leaving the country to have an abortion.

Despite the Supreme Court paving the way for legal abortion in limited circumstances, it has never been legislated for in the Dáil.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights said the Government should make it clear in what circumstances abortion is legal in Ireland.

It found the rights of a Lithuanian woman, known only as “C”, who had a rare form of cancer, and who travelled from Ireland to Britain for an abortion, had been violated.

Both coalition partners had different stances on the issue before the election and it now appears that the Fine Gael version has won out, with the Government now setting up a review group to examine the European court ruling.

Labour’s pre-election manifesto said in Government, it “will legislate in accordance with the Supreme Court judgment in the X Case, and recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights”.

Fine Gael’s manifesto promised to “establish an all-party committee, with access to medical and legal expertise, to consider the implications of the recent ruling of the ECHR and to make recommendations”.

It said: “Such a process would, we believe, be the best way of examining the issues in a way that respects the range of sincerely held views on this matter.”

Ms Conway said she would have preferred if the Government had legislated for the X Case judgment as promised but accepts “that is the nature of coalition governments”.

“My own personal preference would have been that we would have legislated for it. But that’s not the case so I am prepared to wait and to see what way the review group will report back.”

Successive governments have “kicked the can down the road and allowed the court to do the job of legislator” which is not what they are elected for.

“We often hear politicians with their empty rhetoric that our job is to make legislation. But they just have not had the appetite to face this issue at all.”

Ms Conway pointed out that she had strong support from her parents that helped her succeed in completing two masters degrees, including an MBA, while raising a small child and is one of the few, if not only, single parents in the Dáil.

This is why she found cuts effecting single parents in the budget difficult.

“I know that the budget has been very tough for single parents. Very tough. And I’ve been getting a lot of heat on that.

“But I suppose I always try and make the argument that what ever I can do in opposition, in Government I can certainly have some flexibility to try to influence how we progress in relation to what is entailed for lone parents.

“I’m having ongoing conversations with people internally in my party and with [social protection] minister Joan Burton’s office on that issue and will continue to lobby away.”

As one of the Labour TDs pushing to have the party’s in social policies progressed in Government, Ms Conway believes that the issue of same sex marriage should be one of the first issues to be dealt with by the constitutional convention.

“I don’t think it will happen this year. I would like to see it happen early 2013.”

But she accepts the reasons why it is pushed down the agenda: “To be fair to the issues that are involved and the serious implications it has for people in same sex relationships and their children and their families, you need to give it the time to allow a proper debate and lead up and campaign.”

A recent survey found 70% of the public are in favour of allowing same sex marriage. And according to Ms Conway, that is a great signal of how the country has changed: “It heartens me to see we have come that far.”