The Minister for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, has said she will vote according to her conscience on the abortion Bill and said she was “deeply concerned” about the suicide clause in the legislation.

Speaking in the Dáil debate on the issue yesterday, she also criticised the “groupthink” which she said dominated the abortion issue in Ireland.

Ms Creighton said: “It seems that if you do not succumb to the accepted view that abortion is a ‘liberal issue’, a ‘women’s rights issue’, a cornerstone of the ‘progressive agenda’, then you are deemed to be a backward, illiberal, Neanderthal fundamentalist who belongs to a different era.  

“The distinct irony of this prevailing view, is that it is so illiberal in its intolerance of any alternative outlook.”

She said that she had never regarded herself as a pro-life campaigner, but that she rejected the idea that being “pro life” meant being “anti-woman”.

“[W]hen one steps back from the stifling groupthink, and reflects, I think one arrives at a different view. I am a woman and I am happy to say that I am also very much in favour of women’s rights. But by that I mean all women. Not just adults or adolescents or children – I mean babies too,” Ms Creighton said.

Referring to those who suggest that she leave her “morals or conscience aside in order to support abortion” she said that she found the suggestion “bizarre”.

Ms Creighton said: “There is an emerging consensus in Ireland which suggests that having a sense of morality has something to do with the Catholic Church. It is automatically assumed that if you consult your conscience, you are essentially consulting with Rome.  

“This is deeply worrying. It is a lazy way of attempting to undermine the worth of an argument, without actually dealing with the substance. This is not just a Catholic issue, any more than it is a Protestant or Muslim issue. This is not a religious issue. It is a human rights issue.

“I wonder what one should consult when voting on a fundamental human rights issue such as this, if not one’s own conscience? My personal view is that all I can do, when making a decision on life and death, and that is what we are considering here, is consult my conscience, which is based on my sense of what is right and what is wrong.  

“What else can I consult? The latest opinion poll? The party hierarchy? The editor of the most popular newspaper?”

Calling groupthink “a corrosive affliction in this country” she said it had also prevailed during the Celtic Tiger era.  

She said: “It is easy to understand why people in positions of responsibility want thorny issues to simply disappear. It is far easier than risking conflict, unpopularity or worse; paying the price for speaking up

“Wouldn’t the country have been much better served in the 2000s, had more people on the Government benches, in academia, or in the media been prepared to raise their heads above the parapet? I am sure that there were many conscientious objectors who realised that what was happening was wrong, yet they all remained reticent to avoid the wrath of their colleagues, the public, their bosses, the media and so on. Conscience lost out, and the country suffered greatly.”

She said she hoped that some “substantive changes” might be accepted to improve the legislation in order to make it more compatible with our constitutional obligations as legislators.

She said that that clause 9 of the Bill, which permits abortion in the case of abortion was “a very worrying step”.

“Not only does it fly in the face of the evidence presented at both hearings of the Oireachtas health committee, where the overwhelming view of the medical profession was that suicide could never provide a treatment or a solution to suicidal intent, but in addition, this clause has the potential to normalise suicidal ideation by enshrining suicide on our statute book for the first time,” she said.