Pregnant women would no longer have to undergo a “patronising and paternalistic” three-day wait between attending a doctor and getting an abortion under legislation proposed by the Social Democrats.
The current law allows termination without restriction up to 12 weeks of pregnancy once a three-day waiting period has passed between a first and second consultation. It can also be carried out in cases where there is a risk to the life, or serious harm to the health, of a pregnant woman and where a foetus is likely to die before or within 28 days of birth.
We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Aontu leader & Meath-West TD Peadar Toibin, who says: “we at Aontu think this would be a mistake to delete this reflection period of time. This is often one of the biggest decisions that any woman could make in her life”.
Deputy Toibin also said: “it is an irreversible decision, and we believe it is compassionate to provide a period of time for a woman to reflect on whether to proceed with an abortion or not”.
We were also joined by Social Democrats Senator, Patricia Stephenson, who told us about why her party want to see this wait period abolished once and for all.