Earlier this year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, echoed by the human rights commissioner of
the Council of Europe,
drew Ireland’s attention to the need to bring maternity services into
line with international human rights standards. Human rights expert Patricia Schultz
told the Government its highly centralised system of maternity care
“transformed the most important experience of a lifetime for women and
their partners into a production-line process”. The resources the
Government plans to put into maternity care should reflect the
commitment, she said, to respect the normal birth process.
