Marie Sherlock: Abolish the Three-Day Wait - Act Now

And I want to thank Deputy Colnaghan and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this bill this evening. Obviously it addresses one part of the O'Shea report. We would have, I suppose, wanted to express our disappointment that there's an element of cherry picking from the O'Shea report and I suppose if we're accepting the bona fides of the O'Shea report then we should be looking at all the issues in the O'Shea report. So it is to express our disappointment with Sinn Féin in that regard that they're singling one issue. But it is the one issue that there appears to be greater political consensus on compared with some of the other issues identified in the O'Shea report and in that spirit I very much welcome the bill this evening. Minister, I'm standing here and a little bit frustrated that it's taken another private member's bill to discuss this issue. As you know, the legislation committed to a three-year review. That took way longer than planned. We now have the O'Shea report gathering dust in the Department of Health for three years now. The Minister came in to the Chamber just a month ago to express her own personal position with regards to this part of, I suppose, the O'Shea report with regards to the three-day wait. We're not going to be a huge amount further after this evening in terms of providing those assurances. I believe the government is in their power now to make sure that we have very speedy passage of this legislation, either the Sinn Féin bill or indeed bill brought forward by the government itself. But the reality is there are women out there who are looking on who have either recently found themselves in this circumstance or may over the coming months and look at the hours of debate that we've had here in this House and very little progress. Even if this bill does pass this evening, there is an onus, I believe, on government now to expedite, or tomorrow evening, to expedite the legislation to ensure that we effectively get rid of that three-day wait. Back in 2018, I was extremely proud to be part of the Dublin Central Together for Yes campaign. In fact, I think I will look back on it probably as one of the most unique and special campaigns I'll ever have been involved in, given the cross-party support at the time. And night after night, the message from the doorsteps to us was that we cannot continue to export our problem, an Irish problem. Around two-thirds of voters were casting their vote in support of repealing the Eighth Amendment back in 2018. I passionately believe they were not voting for 1,500 women to have to still go abroad to access a termination in the years since then. We know in 2023, 240 women in one year had to travel to England, and that's just England, to access a termination of pregnancy because they could not access it here, either because they timed out of the 12-week or, of course, with regards to fatal fetal abnormalities. We know that the three-day wait does play an important part in delaying and blocking women from access to that very necessary health care. We know that there is absolutely zero clinical indication for the three-day wait period, and it has to go. It is absolutely demeaning and degrading to send a woman away who comes and requests an abortion. And I'm struck by what Deputy Gibney said there when she was in her pregnancy more than 20 years ago. When women turn up to the doctor, they know what they want. It's not a question of that they have to be sent away to reflect. When you take that decision to approach a doctor to ask for termination, that woman has already thought long and hard about it. And it is, frankly, moralistic and paternalistic and a political fix that was not proposed by the Citizens' Assembly, was not proposed by the Special Oireachtas Committee on abortion care and was simply a political fix that was put in place to try and make the legislation more palatable as opposed to being the right thing to do. We know that there are women out there who, for a whole variety of reasons, fall outside the 12-week mark in particular because of the logistics of the three days, because of trying to access their GP locally, because of women in domestic violence situations, women who must take time away from their work. And I'm struck I got an email today from a woman in my own constituency who said, thank God, she had the luxury of being located close to her medical practitioner who could provide the service. Thank God she had the reality of a flexible work arrangement to be able to access that service because there are many women who are in many parts of this country who simply cannot. And in particular, if there's a language barrier or if there is an intercultural issue with regards to accessing a GP, then those issues are exacerbated. I should note that there was a pause put on language interpretation services in our part of Dublin over recent months, which was frankly frightening for many patients because that service is absolutely necessary for patients being able to access health care like the way you and I and any of the rest of us here have when we go into our doctor. Thankfully, it's now being restored. But the reality is they are the challenges, they are the stumbling blocks that women face when they go to their doctors and the three-day waiting period must go. It is simply paternalistic and needs to go. The reality is that we have seen wait periods being removed in many other European countries. They're frankly almost non-existent in most other European countries and Ireland needs to fall into line to that because, as I said very clearly in the O'Shea report, and we know from talking to many doctors, there is no clinical indication on this. Just to the Minister's comments with regards to the legislation itself, and I welcome the exploration of the issues, Minister. The cynic in me might say that we haven't spent as much time talking about the issues with regards to accessing GP care for the past 12 months as we have in the few minutes during your contribution, Minister, because in terms of the logistical issues of clinical scheduling, patient flow, service demand and capacity, these are broader issues with regards to access to GP care. The reality is that in many parts of the country we have very significant waiting lists for access to GPs and that is something that is on government in terms of your failure to actually ensure that there is a fair and even distribution of GPs right across the country. In my own constituency, we know that in Cabra there is one GP to every 3,000 people, in the North End there is one to every 3,500, and we go to other areas and we see it is one to 1,500 people. There is a huge inequity of access there. It is not just women who are trying to access termination of pregnancy, it is many, many people who are affected by the systemic shortage of GPs across this country. I have already said that I believe that we should be expediting this legislation, either this legislation or the government's legislation, as of tomorrow night, when hopefully it does pass. I implore all TDs on the government benches to go out and do the right thing, to not pass judgment on women, but to make sure that you afford women the opportunity to do the thing that is best for themselves, their families and their own bodies, and to not pass judgment as to what is right or wrong. I cannot let the occasion pass, Minister, without talking about fatal fetal abnormalities, because I do passionately believe that has to be part of the conversation. Unfortunately, it is not part of this legislation, but it is something hugely important to the Labour Party. Again, we know that the 28 days are very serious questions about the clinical indication with regards to the 28 days. When we talk to neonatologists and obstetricians, they talk about the extreme difficulty of being able to predict with any great certainty fatal fetal abnormalities and whether that baby will pass away within the 28-day limit. We believe the 28-day limit has to be reviewed. I listened to a woman on Cork96.fm this morning, a mother named Holly, who spoke so eloquently and bravely about the loss of her own daughter, Hazel. She had been yearning for a baby, but the reality is that when she was 14 weeks pregnant, there was the realisation that there was a fatal fetal abnormality. But because there could be no certainty with regards to whether it was going to be within the 28 days, ultimately she felt she had to travel. There are many other families out there who will want to stay the course, who will want to give birth to that baby in this country, but others will not. Again, this is about trusting women. If we are to take the key message from the 2018 referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, it is about trusting women and, crucially, trusting doctors. Our legislation is not built to trust doctors in terms of how it seeks to effectively criminalise and suppress those making decisions, and also in terms of the very rigid definition around fatal fetal abnormalities. I just want to conclude and say that this has been a long time coming. We should not be here in 2026, eight years after the referendum, five years after the review should have been completed, still talking about just one part of the termination of pregnancy legislation. This, to me, needs to be the simple part of the conversation with regards to eliminating the three-day wait. I suppose my appeal to you, Minister, is that we need to see the government backing this proposal tomorrow night, not just a free vote, but the government backing this proposal tomorrow night, and a firm and clear commitment that you will progress the abolition of the three-day wait as speedily as possible, ideally by the end, before we rise for recess, because there will be women who will fall out, who will be affected by our lack of action here in this Dáil over the summer and into the winter months. Go raibh maith agat.