Alison O'Connor: Greater equality in maternity care should not mean levelling down

Women need all the facts about maternity care before making choices and deciding what is ultimately best for them and why.

Labour senator Rebecca Moynihan stated that doctors ‘are advocating to keep a better system for those that pay’.

It’s a head-scratcher alright for Irish women to be told inequality in our maternity services actually presents them with a better choice and they should fight for the status quo to remain.

That’s exactly how the row over the plan to phase out private maternity care is being presented by the Masters of two of the three maternity hospitals in Dublin. On first hearing the clarion call of these two men, there are echoes of feminist stirrings pondering this wrong about to be perpetuated on the fertile women of the nation.