Sir, – The HSE website demonstrates that the list of hospitals providing abortion services consists mainly of urban hospitals, with most country hospitals opting out. Here in the southeast, acute hospitals with maternity services in Wexford, Clonmel and Kilkenny have declined to provide abortion services and no list is published of GP practices that provide them.
A woman’s access to the service is difficult if her own GP declines it. When her GP refers her to another practice, as they are obligated to do, the second GP is entitled to refuse to provide the service, thus sending the patient on a traumatic merry-go-round of GP visits at a stressful time. It looks like we have abortion in name only. – Yours, etc,
FINBAR KEARNS,
Piercestown,
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Co Wexford.
Sir, – In reviewing legislation on abortion, members of the Oireachtas need to remember that the law cannot legislate for every possible situation but must serve the common good. Therefore, I believe that retaining the three-day waiting period is important because it allows for a short period of reflection on the decision to terminate a life.
While some women may be discommoded, other may be saved from many years of regret.
Many citizens who voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018, or who may have not voted for this amendment to the Constitution in 1983, would feel betrayed by removing the three-day waiting period. I am one of them. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET LEE,
Newport,
Co Tipperary.