600+ GPs have submitted a petition to the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) to trigger a new Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to discuss the issue of abortion.

The doctors have been thwarted twice in the past in their efforts to hold such a meeting. The first time signatures were ruled invalid for having been collected digitally.  The second time a meeting was held but motions and votes were not allowed. This latest effort has well over the 350 physical signatures of full ICGP members required to automatically trigger an EGM under the rules of the Companies Act.

Dr Valerie Morris of the Medico Legal Alliance said clarity is best achieved by an EGM being convened to debate and vote on specific motions dealing with TOP (Termination of Pregnancy). She said: “We look forward to the upcoming EGM and would like to thank all those Irish GPs who took the time to sign the petition in the interest of democracy being upheld in our College, the ICGP.”