Legislation to abolish the three-day waiting period for abortion on request has been introduced in the Dáil.
Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger said “termination of pregnancy is a health procedure that is extremely time sensitive” and the 2018 Act introduced a mandatory 72-hour cooling off period before a second appointment to access abortion.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the Government was not opposing the legislation “at first stage”.
Introducing the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) (Amendment) Bill Ms Coppinger said the 72-hour clause “does not apply to any other medical procedure that we have in law”.
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“You can buy Viagra over the counter ... You can have rhinoplasty. There is no mandatory wait. The regret rate for rhinoplasty is 40 per cent.”
The Dublin West TD said “it is based on the idea that women are rash, emotional, cannot make decisions for themselves and have not fully thought things through and that by putting in this place this barrier they will suddenly decide not to go ahead with a termination.
“It does not recognise the amount of thought somebody has generally put into a decision before they even pick up a phone to make an appointment. It does not recognise the impact it is having on GP services. This was, essentially, a political decision at the time” and introduced at the last minute.
“The legislation was very dependent on getting the vote of Simon Coveney, who I understand was tánaiste at the time, and the votes of some other people in the ranks of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”
The Cabinet at the time agreed a “pause period”, considering between 48 and 72 hours and choosing the latter.
The current act is “forcing women to go much later, not by three days but often a lot more”. A survey, Too Many Barriers, found “the majority of people reported that it was very negative for them to have a mandatory delay.
“They spoke about having to get a person to give them a lift to a second appointment and having to get time off work. They spoke about the stress and anxiety of being forced to wait longer and having this hanging over them.”
Some 98 per cent of people who went to a first appointment went ahead with termination at the second. “The idea that they had to be forced to wait is highly insulting.”
She said “often people are waiting a week for an appointment with a doctor. Some one in four people waited more than three days for a second appointment. This can add ten days to the timeline.”
The date of pregnancy “is measured by a doctor in our law from the first day of a last period. It is not measured from the date of conception. Therefore, people have even less time.”
She said “we are potentially adding another week and forcing people to travel, including victims of domestic violence”.
The World Health Organisation, the Irish Family Planning Agency and the United Nations “have all said that mandatory waiting period should not be introduced”.
Ms Coppinger’s Bill replaces similar legislation introduced in the last Dáil by then People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith.
Her Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill, which abolishes the three-day waiting period for abortion on request had passed second stage but fell on the dissolution of the Dáil when the general election was called.
An attempt to have it restored to the Order Paper was rejected by 73 to 71 votes in the closest vote so far of this Dáil. Government TDs had a free vote on the legislation and a number including Cabinet Ministers supported it being restored to the Order Paper.
