Conflict between doctors’ legal security and women’s lives not acceptable

Fine Gael TD for Dublin South, Olivia Mitchell, has said that the lack of legal clarity around the availability of terminations has created a situation where some doctors feel they have to prioritise their own legal protection over the lives of the women entrusted to their care.

Speaking in Dáil Éireann today (Tuesday), Deputy Mitchell said: ‘It is not in anybody’s interest that a patient could be allowed to suffer unnecessarily. We cannot leave doctors in a position where they feel they have to treat a living sentient human being in a way a vet wouldn’t treat an animal because there is a lack of legal clarity about how they should act’.

“It is a tragedy and an indictment on us all that it took the death of Savita Halappanavar for this to become a national issue. However, we now have a unique opportunity to ensure that doctors never again have to be more cautious about their own legal protection than they are about the life of the mother they are treating.

“The dangerous legal vacuum in which our medical professionals practice is the direct result of the inaction of elected politicians. There may be an understandable desire to lay blame for what happened on the Church, on the doctors, or on the hospital, but the only truly culpable people are us, we in the Oireachtas, and those who went before us.

“We failed over many years to give legislative expression to a right guaranteed by our constitution and voted for in successive referenda by the people of Ireland, and I don’t want any more deaths at my door.”