Jerry Buttimer calls for abortion forum

An all-Ireland forum approach is needed to address the complex issues which arose from the High Court hearing into the tragic right-to-die case of a brain dead pregnant woman.

That is the view of the chairman of the Oireachtas health committee, Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer, who said such an approach, based on the public hearings process adopted by the Convention on the Constitution, would ensure views were heard in a mature and respectful way.

“What we had in this case was a set of very tragic circumstances and a family in grief,” he said.

“And it was regrettable that it was played out in such a public way. But you can’t have a knee-jerk reaction to every case.

“What is clear now is that we have to have a proper national debate around this and to hold that debate in a mature, clear, and focused manner, devoid of politics.”

The woman at the centre of the case was 15 weeks pregnant when she suffered major brain trauma, and was declared clinically brain dead in early December.

She was put on life support machine because doctors were uncertain about the legal implications given that she was pregnant.

The woman’s family had to go to the High Court to argue for her to be allowed to die.

After hearing unanimous medical evidence that the unborn child stood little or no chance of survival if life support continued, the High Court ruled on St Stephen’s Day that it was lawful in this case to withdraw life support, which finally occurred on Saturday.

Her family is now preparing to bury her and her unborn child.

Mr Buttimer, who was widely praised earlier this year for his chairing of the health committee’s hearings in relation to the heads of the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill 2013, accepted there was a need to provide further clarity to the medical profession in relation to this issue.

However, he said a forum approach would best facilitate input from all interests.

“We need to hear the middle ground, not just the extremes on either side,” he said.

“It would provide a roadmap and the process would result in a recommendation, or series of recommendations, issuing to Government.

“This Government has already legislated for the X case, which polarised the country and Fine Gael in particular — we lost two members as a result of that process.

“But there is a need for political leadership on this issue. And remember, this Government is the first in 30 years to address these complex issues.”

However, Mr Buttimer said it was very unlikely that a referendum on the 1983 Eight Amendment, which acknowledges the right to life of the unborn child, would be held next year, given the number of important referenda that are already due to be held.

The Master of the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, Dr Rhona Mahony, described this right-to-die case as one of “horror and absurdity”.

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, she described the High Court ruling that “the rights of the unborn must prevail over the feelings of grief and respect for the mother who is no longer living,” as “an unsettling concept”.

She said better odds of foetal survival could invoke “the distressing spectacle of prolonged somatic support of a dead pregnant woman” — a prospect she described as “chilling”.

Former attorney general and justice minister Michael McDowell said it was “deeply wrong” that a grieving family was forced to seek the High Court’s intervention to end the woman’s life.