Pregnant women would no longer have to undergo a “patronising and paternalistic” three-day wait between attending a doctor and getting an abortion under legislation proposed by the Social Democrats.
The party wants the Government to amend the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, removing the mandatory three-day “cooling off” period, which the party says is “patronising and paternalistic” and lacks a “scientific basis”.
The current law allows termination without restriction up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once a three-day waiting period has passed between a first and second consultation. It can also be carried out in cases where there is a risk to the life, or serious harm to the health, of a pregnant woman and where a foetus is likely to die before or within 28 days of birth.
Introducing the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026 in the Dáil on Tuesday, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said doctors are left with no choice but to “force women to travel abroad” for terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality as they must be certain a foetus will die within 28 days of birth in order to provide an abortion. Her party says it is very difficult for doctors to determine with such specificity when a foetus is likely to die.
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Her party’s Bill would remove the reference to 28 days, replacing it with a statement that there is a “fatal condition affecting the foetus”. It would also compel the Minister for Health to introduce guidelines clarifying when a termination can be offered where there is a risk to the life or health of the mother.
Cairns said doctors are left to navigate a grey area “with the threat of criminal prosecution hanging over them, which results in overly cautious and risk-adverse decision-making and a tendency towards refusing to provide care”.
“There is no other area of healthcare where practitioners are exposed to criminal liability if things go wrong,” she said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government is committed to ensuring there is “safe and equitable access” to abortion services. He said services for terminations of up to 12 weeks’ gestation are now provided in all 19 maternity hospitals. There are now 491 community providers following a “sustained increase”, he said.
The Taoiseach said there is a “broad spectrum of sincerely held opinion on the issue of legislative change”, so proposals of this nature “require careful consideration”.
In a statement, Senator Sarah O’Reilly, of pro-life party Aontú, said the three-day wait provides a “vital space for reflection at a time of immense pressure and vulnerability”.
“The reality is that some women are unsure, some feel overwhelmed, and some feel they have no real alternative. That short pause can be the only moment they have to breathe, to think, and to reconsider,” she said.
Also in the Bill is a new subsection to exempt medical practitioners from section 23 of the 2018 Act, which makes it an offence for a person to “intentionally end the life of a foetus otherwise than in accordance” with the Act.
A practitioner’s right to “conscientious objection” to performing an abortion would be qualified by the insertion of a new subsection saying this “does not override a medical practitioner, nurse or midwife’s professional and legal duty to provide prompt and appropriate medical assistance to any person in a medical emergency”.
The party says its Bill seeks to enact the recommendations of barrister Marie O‘Shea’s report from three years ago.
Among O’Shea’s findings was that there was no restriction on healthcare workers who abuse their right to conscientiously object by actively obstructing or delaying a woman’s access to care by providing misleading information.
O’Shea found there was a lack of clarity around abortion where there is a risk to the life or health of a woman and in fatal foetal abnormality cases, save where they are straightforward.
