Ivana Bacik: Abolish 3-Day Wait, Fix Fatal Anomaly Rules

Beir maith agat, Ceann Comhairleach, Taoiseach, no woman who lived under the shadow of the Eighth Amendment will ever forget its impact. Many of us will recall the X case, the ABC case, the PP case, the tragic death of Savita Halapanavar. And we all know that there are thousands of other women who were harmed and whose lives were deeply impacted by Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion between 1983 and 2018. Thousands had to travel abroad for necessary health care. In later years, many self-medicated with pills purchased online and far too many in the early years had to resort to using underground phone lines to get abortion information. Taoiseach, as Students' Union President in Trinity in 1989, I will never forget taking calls from women and girls in crisis pregnancy who were seeking the phone numbers of abortion clinics in England and had nowhere else to turn then. Women who were panicked and desperate would describe their terror to me. Their bodies were no longer their own. Their futures were no longer their own. And because of the Eighth Amendment, they had to resort to calling a Trinity student's phone line to ask for help. Taoiseach, after many decades of campaigning, we succeeded in repealing the Eighth Amendment in 2018 and in legalising abortion here. And that's very welcome. But far too many women are still travelling, at least 1,500 since 2019. Women across Ireland still feeling the loneliness of rejection by their own health service. So we must address the barriers to accessing necessary reproductive health care. Resources are not the issue. The constitutional ban is gone. What's preventing women from getting the care they need is political squeamishness and cowardice, a residual, insulting, patriarchal mistrust of women that forms the basis of the mandatory three-day wait and government's unwillingness to engage with the evidence that other change is needed. Taoiseach, I welcome your confirmation that you will vote in support of the Private Members' Bill to remove the three-day wait at second stage tonight. But even if that reform is introduced, it will not be enough. It will not be enough in particular for women who receive a devastating diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality but who still have to travel abroad because of the unnecessarily restrictive provisions in the current law. Taoiseach, you asked Barrister Marie O'Shea to lead a review into how abortion care was working in Ireland. Her report was published three years ago. From that moment, you and your colleagues were on notice that the system was failing women, that arbitrary and paternalistic processes are failing women and, indeed, doctors. So we need to go further than removing the mandatory three-day wait. We need urgent reform of the overly restrictive provisions on fatal foetal anomaly and we need implementation of all the recommendations from Marie O'Shea's report. Taoiseach, the three-day wait is one serious obstacle and women cannot wait any longer for it to be repealed. So can we have a timeline for this change? None was forthcoming from government last night. And three years since the O'Shea review, when will we see all her recommendations implemented to deliver effective reproductive care and abortion rights for women? Taoiseach, please. First of all, I recognise that this is a very sensitive issue and I appreciate you raising it in the manner that you have. And I know you've campaigned consistently over a long period of time in relation to the abolition of the Eighth Amendment and, on reflection of my view, this area should never have been in the Constitution in the first instance. And it came out of a particular era in the 1980s and, be that as it may, the people spoke in the referendum. And in the context of that referendum, I think there was a general debate in terms of what would follow. And if you look at what has happened, I think there is no safe and equitable access to termination of pregnancy services. I think that you didn't really acknowledge that in your presentation. The significant steps have been taken in this regard, including the expansion of hospital services, a sustained increase in community providers, about 492 community providers now, the introduction of safe access zones, the continuation of the revised model of care for termination and early pregnancy. These measures have substantially reduced barriers and increased access to services for those who need it. And there is a broad spectrum of sincerely held views on this issue. We should respect that and government respects that insofar as we have a conscience both on these issues and have had the constituent party members, so Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independents, allow for a conscience vote on this. And that's what will happen in respect of the vote this evening on the three-day wait period. And we should respect everybody's perspectives and views on this question. In terms of the three days, I think it's interesting that if you look at the UNPAC study, the Unplanned Abortion Care Study, which was commissioned as part of the review of the Health Regulation of Termination Act 2018, they explored the experiences of individuals accessing abortion services under Section 12 of the Act. The finding indicates that the mandatory three-day waiting period was a recurring feature of discussions across the majority of interviews conducted and participants expressed a range of views regarding its value and impact. While some regarded it as a procedural requirement that had to be navigated, others viewed it as a barrier or deterrent to accessing care, and very few participants considered the waiting period to have been beneficial to their own decision-making process, although some did acknowledge that other women might value additional time for reflection. And those availing of the services now illustrate the degree to which the services have proved to be quite comprehensive in scope and access. Taoiseach, I absolutely acknowledge the progress that has been made since 2018, and since the legislation came in in 2019, of course. But we still have to acknowledge that we're failing far too many women. 1,500 women, that's not a small number, and in each situation, really, really difficult circumstances. I am glad that we're seeing a change of heart from government on the three-day waiting period, after years of insisting that because it was inserted late in the campaign into draft legislation just prior to the vote, that because of that, that prevented you from looking to abolish it. I welcome your change of heart on this Taoiseach. But supporting this modest measure through the first stage of a multi-phase legislative process is not enough. We need a timeline for its passage into law, if indeed government are going to support that. But we also need to see that other crucial change, in particular, on fatal foetal anomaly. And I'm looking at Marie O'Shea's report. She talks about the challenges in clinical practice, the potentially unfair outcomes in parents arising from implementing the current section. I've spoken with doctors, I've spoken with women affected, spoken with couples affected, and we need to acknowledge that the language in that section does need change, and that that is another crucial part of the reforms necessary to guarantee women and their partner. Taoiseach, to respond, please. In terms of the timeline for the amendment, that's subject to the Oireachtas and Agreement, but it's going to go to the committee. If it's passed, if it's not, it doesn't go to the committee. That's where we are. So it will be subject to the vote this evening, and subsequent to that, then, it will be considered by the committee. The Minister has already, I think, engaged with Deputy Connan on this. The Minister will be cooperative and will be in a constructive mode if the amendment is carried this evening. I think we have to be careful as well in generalising in terms of the reasons why every single person had to go to the UK. Also, I think it's one of the issues here is every case can be different, but legislative attempts to try and deal with that could have unintended consequences. I would have voted against the Social Democratic Bill two weeks ago because I just felt it went too far, and I think legislatively it was imprecise and poor in terms of wanting government to interfere in clinical decision making. Thank you, Taoiseach. Maybe that was unintended, but that was clearly in the Act or was proposed. So this is not simple, and I think we want to continue with a conscience vote in terms of the members of our party.