Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane has introduced legislation in the Dáil to abolish the mandatory three-day waiting period between a woman’s first medical consultation and her abortion — the second such bill introduced by an opposition party in a single month.
Current Irish law permits termination up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once the three-day period has passed between a first and second medical consultation.
The Social Democrats’ Holly Cairns introduced a similar bill in April, which she called “patronising and paternalistic.” Her bill also addresses fatal foetal abnormality cases, removing the existing 28-day survival threshold and replacing it with a broader “fatal condition affecting the foetus” standard.
The bills arrive just days after Ireland’s March for Life rally in Dublin, at which hundreds gathered to oppose exactly this kind of legislative push. Pro Life Campaign spokeswoman Caroline Simons said the three-day wait “gives a woman freedom, time to think, time to reflect,” and warned that the availability of online abortion pills means actual termination numbers likely exceed official figures — including cases involving coercion by partners.
Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018 by 66.4% to 33.6%. The three-day wait was one of the few protections written into the resulting legislation. Its removal is now being pursued on two legislative tracks simultaneously — suggesting the left-wing parties coordinated their strategy — while pro-life demonstrators were still clearing the streets of Dublin from last Sunday’s rally.
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