Richard Boyd Barrett: I had to bury my daughter Ella

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has spoken in the Dáil about his daughter who was born with fatal foetal abnormalities and who would now be a teenager had she survived.

In a moving account of the tragedy, Mr Boyd Barrett told the House that “next Tuesday 13 years ago I had to bury my daughter Ella who was born with fatal foetal abnormalities”.

“She would be 13 this spring,” he said. “It was a beautiful spring day exactly like today when we had to bury her.

“And myself and her mother and her two brothers think about her every day.”

Cannot survive

Mr Boyd Barrett was speaking during debate on legislation introduced by Independent TD Clare Daly to provide for abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality where a foetus cannot survive outside the womb.

Mr Boyd Barrett said they had a tree planted on Killiney Hill in South Dublin to remind them of her.

“And we go up every year to remember her and think about how she might still be here because she was a daughter that we desperately wanted.

“And when we received the diagnosis that she had a condition that was incompatible with life, we couldn’t understand it.”

The Dún Laoghaire TD said they went to "the ends of the Earth, from geneticists, to doctors, first opinions, second opinions, third opinions, looking for alternatives, to see if alternative medicine had some different perspective".

He said: “We looked in every possible direction to cling on to the hope that she might live. But there was no doubt about it. It was an absolutely certainty that she would not live because she had a condition that was incompatible with life.”

Mr Boyd Barrett described as “completely unique” the situation in relation to this legislation, the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Amendment (Fatal Foetal Abnormalities) Bill.

Incompatible with life

“It has nothing to do with the right to life because you cannot protect a life when we are talking about a condition that is incompatible with life. It can’t be protected. And that is the point of this Bill.

“That’s why the constitutional protection does not apply because this is a life that cannot be saved... even though this is a life which the parents want desperately to be saved.”

He added: “We don’t even need the safeguard of two doctors that is in this Bill because I can guarantee you that every parent who is in this situation won’t go to two doctors, they’ll go to two, three, four, five, six.

“They’ll explore every single possible avenue in the desperate hope that their child will survive.

“And it is only when there is absolutely - when it becomes clear when they finally get their heads around that fact that there is no chance of survival, and they will relinquish that hope.”

He added: “So the issue of misdiagnosis doesn’t come into it and the issue of constitutional protections of life don’t come into it.

“This is a tragedy whatever way you look at it, and it’s a tragedy that will stay with the people who are victims of it for the rest of their lives - and not just for their lives but if there are brothers and sisters involved, for their lives too.”

Cruelty of nature

He said his daughter “was a victim of the cruelty of nature - nothing else - the cruelty of nature, something that she could not control”.

“So the only issue before this House is, are we going to in some way alleviate or at least not compound the terrible tragedy of losing a wanted child, which the parents and the families of children or babies with these conditions are going to suffer.”

He told the Dáil: “And it is within the power of the people in this room to not make it worse.”

He said that, “this morning in Holles Street or the Rotunda, there is a very good chance that there is a another couple who are getting this news, and they will be utterly devastated and they will be exploring every single option in the desperate hope that the news they’ve been given by the doctors is not true.

“And when they receive that news, the least we can do is to ensure that they have the right to decide that when an inevitable end of life occurs that they will have all the support and back-up that we can give them in a situation where a tragedy is inevitable - and that’s the choice.”

Appealing to Government TDs he said: “All you have to do is reach across and press the green button [Yes vote] to give some relief to people who are going to suffer this tragedy - that that terrible life-ending tragedy will not be compounded by the actions of the people in this room.”