In December Bríd Smith, People Before Profit TD, introduced a bill to amend the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 to get rid of the 3-day waiting period and the 12-week gestational limit.
The government was supposed to produce a review of the act but has consistently delayed it. Yet there are major problems:
- In many parts of the country access to abortion is either impossible or difficult.
- Two out of every five women who need abortion care because of fatal foetal anomaly still have to travel.
- The 3-day wait period implies that women are not fully capable of making their own decisions.
Bríd Smith said that ‘abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and that it should never be a matter for criminal law’.
The government is hinting it will finally publish the long-awaited report on abortion services. Let’s make sure they are put under pressure to give women a real Right to Choose.
