Ireland -Abortion: Simon Mills proposals deeply flawed

Doctor Simon Mills has provided the Oireachtas Health Committee with a draft version of a pregnancy bill which would retain the criminal ban on abortion - but provide for legal abortions in some cases. These include threat of suicide, inevitable miscarriage, non viable pregnancies and cases of lethal foetal abnormality. Simon Mills claims that his Termination of Pregnancy Bill would not provide for legal abortion in cases of rape or incest.

The reality is that his draft is deeply flawed. The Irish media has failed to ask him the hard questions. His proposal to allow abortion on the grounds of a suicide threat amounts to a deliberate attack on the unborn child in the womb. Any such procedure is murder- whether Dr Mills agrees or not. It breaks the Fifth Commandment. It is not for us to decide to end a non viable pregnancy either-contrary to what Dr Mills thinks. It is not for us to play God. Any deliberate termination of a pregnancy viable or non viable is murder. Now Dr Mills needs to go back to the drawing board. Let there be no beating about the bush. There is no moderate position or middle ground on abortion contrary to what Dr Mills postulates. One either favours the protection of unborn children in the womb or one favours the deliberate killing of the unborn. Now it is important to stress that women are entitled to all treatment necessary to save their lives when suffering from life threatening physical illness. The unborn child may unintentionally suffer death in the course of such treatment. This is not abortion.

When is the Irish media going to pose the hard questions on abortion to people such as Dr Mills? Dr Mills needs to realise that the X-Case Judgement was deeply flawed. He would do well to listen to the advice of former British MP David Steel (The Lord Steel of Aikwood) who was responsible for introducing, as a Private Member's Bill, the Abortion Act 1967. He has warned against a suicide clause. He said "I think it would be a mistake to try and legislate for abortion in categories such as suicide or rape. I never envisaged there would so many abortions." Yet Dr Mills ignores such warnings. Let's be blunt: Dr Mills proposals are a charter for a liberal abortion regime. Period.