Parents facing fatal foetal abnormality ‘treated differently’

Couples who suffer a fatal foetal abnormality are treated differently in this country depending on the choice they make, the master of the National Maternity Hospital has said.

Rhona Mahony said that if the Eighth Amendment is not repealed, “what we are saying is that we continue to require women to be dying before they access a termination of pregnancy”.

Speaking at the launch of Labour’s campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment, Dr Mahony said pregnant women with a fatal foetal abnormality currently must travel “with all the shame and stigma on a plane to a different country to doctors they have never met away from their families” and they do this “knowing that this option will be a criminal offence” in Ireland.