Politicians make hocus pocus out of science

There were times yesterday when the Seanad chamber took on the character of a spaceship, en route to a world far removed from the earthy lives of most people.

Terms such as “self-destruction” were thrown about, evoking images of a suicide bomber pressing a button rather than pregnant women in the throes of life-threatening despair. There was a reference to a “panel for the assessment of self-destruction”, which sounds like something out of a totalitarian state.

One politician asked whether the maternity services in this country had the capacity to deal with a bill that basically enshrines in law the medical practice that has prevailed for more than two decades. The question implied hundreds, if not thousands, of women will storm maternity hospitals, demanding abortions, when the bill passes into law.