'Blind eye' was turned to abortions - O'Rourke

THE STATE had ignored for years the number of Irish women travelling to England for abortions, Government backbencher and former Fianna Fáil minister Mary O’Rourke told the Dáil.

She also said that the education system should teach young people about relationships.

“There has been a recorded decrease of 30 per cent in the number of women travelling from Ireland to Britain for an abortion and a 20 per cent fall in the number of births to teenagers, a significant achievement,’’ Ms O’Rourke said.

“We all love to thump our chests and claim we disagree with abortion, and most political parties do not agree with it, but for many years we turned a blind eye to the number of women travelling to Britain for an abortion.’’ She said it was “not correct’’ that young people did not know or learn about properly conducted relationships in education classes.

“In such classes they can be alerted to the fact that just because one wants to keep up with one’s peers does not mean one has to have easy sex with whatever guy crosses one’s path,’’ she added.

She praised the work of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, its first director Olive Braiden and the current holder of the post, Catherine Bulbulia. It had helped to secure a decrease in the number of women travelling abroad for abortions.

The agency, she said, had recently embarked on a consultation process with young people on sexual health and would issue a report by the end of the year.

“It is endeavouring to show young people that it is not cool to have early and unprotected sex,’’ she added. “It is, in fact, most unmodern and wrong. The agency is not claiming it is wrong in a moral sense because it does not, quite rightly, go into that area, which is for another arm of civic society.’’

Ms O’Rourke was speaking during the debate on the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which was introduced by Minister of State for Health Maire Hoctor.

The Bill, she said, had several purposes, including the integration of health service agencies in line with the objectives of the health service reform programme.

Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan also praised the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, adding that official figures indicated a decrease by about 2,000 in the number of abortions carried out on Irish women since its establishment.

She said that when she first became involved in politics in the early 1980s, abortion was a major issue.

“We were all battered around the head for opposing the abortion referendum in the early 1980s, and, from time to time, it has come up on the agenda again,’’ Ms O’Sullivan added.

“The attacks on people who were trying to make reasonable arguments, regarding family planning and so on, should never have been made.’’

As a result of the agency’s work, parenting was by far the most common outcome following a crisis pregnancy, she said. Adoption had decreased significantly.

She added that about 15 per cent of women experiencing a crisis pregnancy chose to have an abortion.

Fine Gael spokesman Dr James Reilly referred to the plight of people on waiting lists for medical care. A man with diabetes had sent him an e-mail explaining how he had gone blind while waiting for an outpatient’s appointment.