Fatal Foetal Abnormality Bill Terminated By Dáil

“THE irony that, our terminating of a bill without trying to amend it in its second stage will lead to many women continuing to suffer, is entirely lost on me,” a stone-faced government minister shared with WWN after a vote on Mick Wallace’s abortion bill was held.

After varying degrees of consideration, the Dáil voted not to carry a private member’s bill centered around fatal foetal abnormality to term.

Although the bill stood a better chance of having a viable life as law if it was carried through to the second stage and the committee stage in the Oireachtas, allowing amendments to be proposed which could see the bill developed into workable legislation, the decision to vote it down was taken.

Contrary to what many people presumed would be a tough and heart wrenching decision, some 95 TDs took little time to decide to terminate the bill before it had a chance at becoming law, stating ‘not on my watch’.

“Could we have tried to develop cross party consensus on an issue which the public is heavily invested in, and draw up workable legislation? We could, but then that would be us doing what we were elected to do and we know that’s not likely,” confirmed the 39 Fianna Fáil TDs who voted against the bill.

“Fair play to Mick for trying to get us to actually do something but the legislation just wasn’t viable, and we had no interest in seeking a second opinion,” confirmed another government minister, who cited unpublished expert advice from the Attorney General as his reason for doing so.

“People should stop criticising the government; we have a referendum on the 8th amendment on a fast track anyway. The constitutional convention will take about a year to report back, and if they recommend a referendum we’ll sit on that for a few more months. Then, when our popularity dips a bit we’ll promise to announce the referendum ‘any day now’ and it’ll be good to go sometime in 2018 I reckon,” the minister concluded.