This Bill will widen the grounds for abortion after a baby is diagnosed with a life-limiting condition. Currently, the law allows abortion if the baby is not expected to live longer than 28 days after birth. This would be changed to allowing abortion if there is a fatal condition affecting the foetus, which is a more broad and general phrase. It is hard for most of us to imagine just what it means for parents who had been happily looking forward to the birth of a new baby to hear that something is seriously wrong. Scans and tests can do a lot to diagnose and predict what to expect but they are not crystal balls. It can happen that mistakes are made in diagnosis. Abortion is not something that can be undone, and the couple whose baby boy was aborted in Holles Street after they were wrongly told by doctors that the baby had a life-limiting condition have spoken about the interminable sadness and grief they live with every day. How many other unborn babies, like baby Christopher, have lost their lives under Ireland's new abortion laws following a misdiagnosis? A child's chance at life, even during a short lifetime after birth, can be incredibly significant for parents to be able to meet their child alive and spend time as a family, maybe even to bring their child home briefly. Even with a correct diagnosis, medicine does not have a crystal ball to be able to say with confidence how long a particular child will live. For many babies diagnosed with trisomy 13 or trisomy 18, for example, it is a very short time but sometimes they can have longer and a better quality of life than what they were told to expect. Parents in this tragic situation deserve the best of support and care throughout the rest of their pregnancy and their child's life and death, at whatever point that comes. Irish hospitals have a wealth of experience in palliative care for babies to keep them comfortable. Instead of normalising abortion, we should be making this kind of support available and known to those who need it.

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