A new HSE-commissioned report for the three year review of the abortion law was selective and incomplete, according to the Pro Life Campaign.

The report criticises conscientious objection, the three-day waiting period and the provisions around ‘fatal foetal abnormalities’ which say that the baby should have an expected lift-span of only 28 days or less after birth in order to be aborted.

Spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said terms like ‘chilling effect’ are used in the abortion debate to press for wider access to abortion and to produce certain outcomes, “while developments that raise serious questions about the extreme and inhumane nature of Ireland’s new abortion law are deliberately brushed aside and ignored”.

She continued: “The truth is that Ireland now has one of the most extreme abortion laws anywhere in the world, permitting unrestricted abortion in the first 12 weeks and allowing gruesome late-term abortions in certain circumstances.

“The Pro Life Campaign and others repeatedly drew attention over the past year to the highly political and partisan way Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly was overseeing the three year review. It remains a scandal that he only met with ‘stakeholders’ who champion wider access to abortion and refused to meet with any representatives of the pro-life side when setting up the review”.