‘Eighth Amendment committee victim of tragic group think’, say rebel members

The Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment fell victim to a tragic “group think” in recommending the legalising of abortion for up to 12 weeks, three rebel members railed yesterday.

Launching their own “minority report”, TDs Peter Fitzpatrick and Mattie McGrath and Senator Ronan Mullen said they were appalled by the failure of the committee to act in an unbiased fashion during its 12 weeks of hearings.

The three politicians called for the 1983 amendment to be retained, saying it has saved thousands of lives.

Mr Fitzpatrick, a Fine Gael TD for Louth, was deeply critical of his own party leader, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, for committing to a referendum before the committee’s work was completed. He said, however, he would remain as a Fine Gael TD as the party has granted a free vote.

Mr Mullen and Mr McGrath were deeply critical of how the committee’s work proceeded during the hearings.

“We are actually horrified by the cavalier way the committee voted to recommend widespread legalised abortion partly out of a desire to avoid figuring out complex cases,” said Mr Mullen.

“We believe the majority of the committee failed to check their bias in favour of abortion and this had an overwhelming effect on the way they selected and treated invited speakers and on the cruel and unjust recommendations which they have embraced,” he added.

“The committee majority failed at all times to ensure fairness,” the three politicians said.

“When you think of the proposal that any child can be killed up to 12 weeks in the womb and part of the reason was to avoid dealing with the complex cases people feel concerned about, show how Orwellian the committee and how reckless the committee majority came to be,” Mr Mullen added.

They said that when the committee preemptively voted to recommend that the Eighth Amendment be removed or changed, without waiting to hear from all invited speakers, much less to hear from a balanced ticket of speakers, this confirmed that the link between the evidence being heard and the conclusions that the committee would reach would be, at best, loose.

“The committee’s decision to vote preemptively has been defended repeatedly by the chairperson despite its being an objectively hasty, ill-considered and prejudicial move.

“We believe that this is unfortunate,” the minority report said.

They said the extraordinary imbalance in the list of invited guests in favour of abortion was a problem from the start which was pointed out by pro-life members.

The minority three made four recommendations of their own.

They were:

• The Eighth Amendment be retained and that this fundamental issue of human rights not be put to the vote;
• That a Citizens’ Assembly be convened to explore the means whereby positive alternatives to abortion can be explored so as to fully respect and defend the rights of unborn children and their mothers and partners;
• That the provision of appropriate perinatal and palliative care be provided in a consistent, high-quality manner across the country and that great public attention be drawn to this; and
• That under a retained constitutional provision, attention be paid to the provision of pregnancy counselling, in particular, State-funded pregnancy counselling, so as to provide appropriate care to women in crisis pregnancy while seeking to prevent abortion by way of encouraging positive alternatives wherever possible.