The Joint Committee on Health met again this week to consider a Sinn Féin bill that aims to get rid of the three-day wait for an abortion. Last week, the HSE argued that there was no clinical reason for the wait, and the week before, two representatives from the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) made the same argument and called for the repeal of the three-day waiting period, even though they had never consulted their members about the matter. Yesterday, two GPs appeared to make the case for keeping the three-day wait. They were Kirsten Fuller and Andrew O’Regan.
Drs Fuller and O’Regan both took part in the 2018 referendum, arguing in favour of keeping the Eighth Amendment. Obviously, they are pro-life. Fianna Fáil TD Martin Daly, who is a GP, made a very big deal of this fact at the meeting. From his line of questioning, it was obvious what he wanted to do, which was to call into question their objectivity and essentially reduce what they had to say to a subjective opinion.
He wanted to make it all about the “clinical evidence”. The two representatives from the ICGP said there is no clinical evidence in favour of keeping the three-day wait, and therefore any argument in favour of retaining it must come down to “personal beliefs and philosophy”, Deputy Daly put it.
He clearly did not seem to think it mattered that the two ICGP representatives, Drs Ciara McCarthy and Diarmuid Quinlan, both came out in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment in 2018 because all they were doing, Deputy Daly seemed to think, was presenting the clinical evidence, which, they claim, says there is no reason to keep the three-day wait.
In fact, Dr McCarthy told the committee a fortnight ago: “The evidence demonstrates that mandatory waiting periods can delay or restrict access to abortion care, can increase emotional distress and can create logistical difficulties for both the woman and healthcare systems.”
Note that there was no mention by her of the baby in the womb. It seems that in her mind, at the moment a woman presents for an abortion, there is only one patient: the woman. The baby does not count, and if this is so, then what clinical evidence could there possibly be in favour of waiting?
Drs Fuller and O’Regan both emphasised that the life of the baby must count for something and that if a life is saved by the three-day wait, then this is the ultimate clinical reason for keeping the three-day wait.
Deputy Daly was trying to contrast the “personal beliefs and philosophy” of Drs Fuller and O’Regan against the supposed objectivity of Drs McCarthy and Quinlan. But what is the clinical evidence for reducing the baby in the womb to a nothing? Effectively declaring that the baby in the womb does not count if the mother wants an abortion is a philosophical judgement par excellence and has absolutely nothing to do with medicine per se, because nothing and no one is being cured in the vast majority of abortion cases. On the contrary, a life is being taken.
Anyone who wants to get rid of the three-day wait is not only saying, in effect, that the baby in the womb counts for little unless the woman says otherwise. They are saying its life is not even worth an extra 72 hours, and therefore it counts for nothing. That is where those who want to change the present law are trying to lead us, including, evidently, Deputy Martin Daly, who is a medical doctor.
Finally, here is a question for him: what does he think an unborn human life is worth?
