Justification for dropping 3-day waiting period has ‘completely collapsed’

A recommendation of the abortion review to scrap the three-day period before a woman has a termination has “completely collapsed”, the Pro Life Campaign has claimed.

At yesterday’s meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee, it emerged that the authors of the Government-sponsored report never spoke to any women who availed of the waiting period or examined the reasons why so many of them chose in the end not to proceed with an abortion.

The Health Committee was meeting to discuss the Report of the review which was published last month and recommends legislative changes to radically widen the grounds for abortion in several areas.

Regarding the call today from the Chair of the Review for legislative change on foot of her report, Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign said: “It was highly inappropriate and revealing the way the Chair of [the] Review personally called for specific changes to the law at today’s meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee” She said the Chair should not have advocated in this way for specific changes to the law.