It is not a matter of health, as I use that word, but seeing that I have been encouraged, I will expand on that. It is a matter of according rights. Is life something that is proscribed narrowly by the prejudices of a few people from a narrow component of one culture at one period of history, or is it something that we all have to make the best of, living as well as we can in accordance with principles of dignity and justice? What have the people who take a reactionary position from the religious perspective to say to the woman who is in terror and often weak? What they bring her is a message of terror rather than of help.
As we may not be discussing this for some time again I wish to refer to another aspect of it. Is it not a reflection of us as legislators that one woman's name, Mrs. McGee, occurs again and again. Are we not totally ashamed that the Supreme Court had to give a decision which forced us to have a debate on the rights of women in our society? Is this not a matter of total disgrace for us? We reel along from one reaction to another to a court decision. Many have sat here and listened to people defending the institutions of the State and the separation of the powers of the State and yet we have to rely on the courts to put us in the direction we are morally afraid to move in politically. We have every reason to be ashamed.
I do not support the Bill for narrow legal reasons, and if this Bill meets the approval of the Seanad I would hope we would begin to face our responsibilities in a more general and human sense. We need to educate people in the positive management of their opportunities in relation to sexual and reproductive matters. It is extremely important that young people should have an opportunity to acquire information. Once that had been acquired it is up to them. I have every confidence in the people to establish an ethic to which they are committed in the use of that information. It is this atmosphere of something hidden, proscribed of terror which is ruining the inter-atmosphere of the prosecution, exercise and consequences of love in our society. Such an atmosphere has brought love, marriage and the reproduction of children into the terrible business it is. David McConnell, in Hibernia on 19th October, 1973, in reviewing our lack of ability to legislate in this matter, said:
A collaboration of design, ignorance and silence amongst the medical profession, the churchmen, the lawyers, the politicians and the teachers ensured this lady had to suffer.
He was describing the position of a battered wife arriving at the out-patient department of a hospital which he had visited. He also described a battered wife as follows:
The ignorance and drunkenness of a husband, the real brutality of sex in a setting of poverty and fear of childbirth, the complete absence of tenderness and gentleness, the taking of a woman as an animalistic deed for recounting at pub-counters and street comers, a savage ritual to be done at will and usually drunk for the male to enjoy and the woman to endure.
This is a sordid example of relationships between man and woman in Ireland in the 1970s. What are we to do? Can we change the attitude of the sexes towards each other overnight so that they might have a relationship which would accommodate the virtues of gentleness and tenderness? Obviously not, although we will have to face up to it sooner or later. It will have to be built into our educational system that we have a greater respect for each other, particularly between the sexes. While we are waiting for this educational overhaul in this most superlative of conservative nations can we stand in the way of legislation which would provide a right of protection for the woman. Or are we middle-class people with access to the educational resources of the State to put the luxury of our conservatism between working class women and their rights?
There is the argument: Is there not a natural family planning system? Unfortunately, Senator Quinlan is not here, but I presume any Member will receive free of charge an extended lecture from him on the Billings Method. I have found The Lancet and the Irish Medical Journal to be a little more impressive in their assessment of the system than the pamphlet circulated free by Senator Quinlan and his clerical friends from their box number in Cork. On the one hand the Billings Method is difficult to understand and there are aesthetic arguments about its procedures. In the average situation of a family under economic pressure where there are real difficulties it is presumed there was complete knowledge and competence to use reasonable alternativies. Recently I discussed this legislation with my wife. Another aspect is the hypocrisy which surrounds that particular attitude of the legislation, that is, that there is an alemative method available, which is false, and that there is literature available. The Censorship of Publications Act, 1946, section 6, made it illegal to sell:
Any publication... advocating unnatural prevention of conception. What was the effect of that on bookshops? Do you think they took on an additional assistant to pick up books and say "This is natural", or "That is unnatural" and decide, "We have taken this or that"? The net effect of it on balance was that no literature was available. The substitute which was offered to the woman instead of a right was a position of forced ignorance not of her choosing—no information offered at all. At the Teheran Conference on Human Rights in 1968, Ireland was one of the countries who sponsored a motion:
Couples have a basic human right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their families and a right to adequate education and information in this respect.
This legislation is to enable a facility for the options to be offered. It is up to the couple then to exercise these options as they wish. Our economic failure, our inability to provide houses and our inability to keep wages up to a level, will make it necessary for options to be exercised. I am in favour of a political system which would take action to relieve strain on families.
Should this Bill fail today and if we defer once again the possibility of the necessity for legislation in this area, is it just the defeat of a few Senators who have a particular leaning in politics. If that were so it would be all right, but it is not. At my political advice centre last week a woman visited me suffering from a lack of iron, one child in the Regional Hospital in Galway, another child just out of hospital with an ear infection, four children born in just over three years. She was underweight and for the first time she was being given treatment of a vitamin kind. I mention this woman because it is not a matter of a few Senators who feel in a particular way who will be done down should this legislation not succeed. It will be a slap in the face to women like the one I mentioned who need the legislation almost to survive in disadvantaged circumstances. I urge the people who are thinking of voting against the Bill to bear that in mind. I also ask them to bear in mind that if one wanted, to take up Dr. Good's phrase serious pastoral concern, is the position of that woman not serious? I should like to quote from our Constitution, Article 15.2.1º:
The sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State is hereby vested in the Oireachtas: no other legislative authority has power to make laws for the State.
We are at a time when people say that —I do not share the opinion—the survival of our institutions is the single greatest political purpose. Yet we find the legislature discussing measures as a result of decisions in the courts. That is hardly showing initiative. Can the legislature not even show concern? A great case was made earlier by Senator Robinson in what is hardly a radical speech. It was, indeed, a very careful and temperate speech in favour of this legislation.
To change the law in relation to family planning is a very specific piece of legislation. It is specific, narrow and is aimed at a particular purpose. That we have had to spend so much time on it is necessary because we have not the larger circumstances in our society which values life adequately. The necessity of making that specific legislative change now is brought about also by conditions that we have been reluctant to expose publicly. In addition, the legislature can show its maturity by invoking a higher responsibility than a particular version of religious practice on this occasion. It is a time to give back some dignity to a group of people here who have had a great deal of dignity stripped away from them through economic deprivation and otherwise, the women of Ireland. For that reason I ask my colleagues in the Seanad to support this Bill.