Politicians scramble to pass abortion law

It has taken 35 years for the Eighth Amendment to be repealed, but yesterday politicians scrambled to say they would be the ones to ensure new legislation would be published in the quickest possible time.

The original timetable for the new law was Christmas, but a consensus emerged yesterday suggesting the Bill could become reality by autumn.

That would mean the legislation getting past second stage by the time the Dáil went into recess in mid July. Late sitting and an extended Dáil term might allow that to happen. Then the all-party committee on health could consider it during the summer break. The legislative time frame is the lead story today.

All the parties now support this approach. They were responding yesterday to Orla O’Connor of the National Women’s Council who said the Oireachtas should be more ambitious, given women will still have to travel to England until such time as the law is changed.

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The Bill itself won’t be overly long, but it will still involve very careful deliberation and very, very precise language. This will be particularly so in the sections that deal with the second trimester, where the access to termination will be far more restrictive.

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan set out some of the Government thinking on this point yesterday.

Here is the relevant quote from Flanagan in our report:

“However, it’s important that the legislation is right so I have no doubt that the preparation of the legislation is going to take a couple of months.

“We need to acknowledge the deeply held personal views on both sides and being clear cut now and to those people on the other side, I would say to them, the legislation will not be of a liberal degree that was forecast by many opposing the referendum.”

So what happens now?

Simon Harris will bring proposals to Cabinet today on the next steps, and the plan will be outlined in the Dáil later in the afternoon.

I cannot foresee Leaders’ Questions being more than a mutual congratulation session, with some noises from Mattie McGrath. There will also be statements on the referendum.

As it happens, Harris is also dealing with priority questions in the Dáil today, and it will give more opportunity for Government and Opposition to tease out the finer points of the legislation.

There are other aspects that will take time. For one, there will be a need for new Medical Council guidelines. They can’t be magicked into existence just like that.

There will also be a need for the abortion pills to be certified as safe by the Health Products Regulatory Authority. Our medical correspondent, Dr Muiris Houston, wrote yesterday it could take a year before the first terminations are carried out under the new laws.

But evidently that timetable is now being pushed forward.

The other big consideration looming in the autumn is the budget and, concomitantly, the end of the confidence and supply agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

Of course, part of the political theatre of the autumn will be the big rows between both parties over the shape of the budget (and I’m not trying to trivialise it). It would be a major surprise, nonetheless, if they failed to reach agreement.

It’s highly improbable the Oireachtas will be brought to an end before the legislation has passed all stages. The two major parties will continue co-operating on an ad hoc basis until the new abortion laws are introduced. After that, all bets will be off.

No party will want to be singled out as the one that prevented the abortion laws from being passed.