Sinn Féin has introduced legislation to abolish the mandatory three-day “cooling off” period for access to an abortion in early pregnancy.
The party’s health spokesman David Cullinane described the Health (Abolition of Three Day Wait Rule) (Amendment) Bill as “straightforward and targeted” that “does just one thing”.
“It does not require an abortion to happen on the day of a first consultation. But where a woman is certain that this is what she wants, it allows her to make that decision for herself, in her own time, about her own pregnancy, without a mandatory delay.”
The law currently allows termination up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once a three-day waiting period has passed between a first and second medical consultation.
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The Sinn Féin Bill is the second piece of legislation introduced on the issue in the past month. In April Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns brought forward a Bill to remove the mandatory three-day wait, which she described as “patronising and paternalistic”.
Her Bill also deals with cases where a foetus is likely to die before or within 28 days of birth of fatal foetal abnormalities.
The legislation removes the reference to 28 days, replacing it with a statement that there is a “fatal condition affecting the foetus”.
In the Dáil on Thursday the Sinn Féin spokesman said his Bill “allows certification to take place as soon as may be, but before the pregnancy has exceeded 12 weeks”.
“This is important because the clear feedback from women and the review of the Act was that some women were being pushed beyond the 12-week threshold by the three-day wait, which denied them their choice to end a pregnancy.”
Cullinane said it was not a complicated proposal but a “focused, practical and compassionate change”.
Sinn Féin never approved of the mandatory waiting period because it “put women in difficult positions” and “was not compassionate to women who had suffered rape or sexual assault, women who learned of their pregnancy late, or women who are subject to controlling or abusive partners, for whom that first appointment may be the only appointment they can get”.
Cullinane pointed to the review of the operation of the Act and said the removal of the three-day wait “was one of the clearest recommendations arising from that process”.
He said “the question before us now is whether the State should continue to impose an arbitrary delay after a woman has already made her decision and presented to a doctor. I do not believe that it should.
“The waiting period does not provide care. It does not provide support. It does not make the service safer. It simply makes access harder and more difficult, especially for those who can least afford delay.”
He added: “What this Bill does is remove the requirement that the State must force every woman to wait, regardless of her circumstances, her decision, her health or her needs.”
Last Sunday an anti-abortion rally in Dublin criticised the Social Democrats Bill and demonstrators were told politicians on the left were attempting to “remove the safeguards” in current legislation.
Hundreds of people attended the March for Life rally and a spokeswoman for the Pro Life Campaign Caroline Simons said the three-day wait period “gives a woman freedom, time to think, time to reflect”.
She said the fact that abortion pills can be bought online means the number of women having terminations may be higher than official figures, including some who have abortions due to “coercion” from a partner.
Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018, which paved the way for abortion to be legalised in some circumstances. The vote was passed by 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent.
