Campaigners told The Journal that recommendations made in a recent review of the legislation must be acted upon swiftly.
With over two million votes cast on 25 May 2018, the country voted by 66.4% to 33.6% to remove the amendment, which gave equal status to the life of the mother and the life of the unborn.
An independent review of the services commissioned by the Government was published last month, highlighting problems such as the “postcode lottery” when it comes to where women can access services. However, she said “clearly we need to do more” to improve services, citing the nine maternity hospitals that do not provide termination services and the fact that women are still travelling abroad because they can’t access abortion here.
“It really was so important in terms of giving access to abortion, but also more than that, in terms of the huge public statements about women’s place in our society, women’s rights, moving away from an Ireland that really controlled women and sought to control the choices and the decisions they could make in relation to their healthcare,” she said.
The campaign for changes in the law in respect of abortion was precipitated by the death of Savita Halappanavar. “It was very striking that very often with our campaign, people would say ‘I don’t approve of abortion, but it really is not my decision to make. That should be up to the woman herself’. People had really understood the point about empathy, that you have to stand in her shoes and understand that my approving or disapproving is neither here nor there, that this is a decision that a woman herself should be able to make.
Concerns have been raised about certain aspects of the legislation that has led to women and couples continuing to travel abroad for terminations. Dr Peter Boylan, the former master of the National Maternity Hospital, was a notable advocate of repeal during the referendum campaign, and subsequently advised the HSE on the implementation of abortion services.
The review recommended changes be put in place for women who need to access an abortion beyond 12 weeks in the case of fatal foetal abnormality. We know at the National Women’s Council from the work that we’ve been doing talking to members but also, just talking about abortion around the country, people are really surprised that women and couples are still having to travel. Because there is this sense of: ‘Oh, but I thought that was all solved now?’. And it isn’t. Concerns around the criminalisation aspect of the legislation were also raised in the review.
This is something Smyth is in favour of. “Providing or assisting a person to have an abortion within the terms of the law should never be a criminal offence,” she said. It states that there are an estimated 422 GPs providing termination services across the country, but that half of the counties in Ireland have fewer than 10 GPs providing termination services.
All of these shortages and so on were eminently predictable, and here we are coming up to five years later, and they still haven’t got their act together. The review stated that the main reason for GPs not providing termination services “may be attributed to excessive workloads”.“They need to be heavily supported and congratulated on the job that they are doing, particularly the ones in counties where there are very few others. They need a lot of support.
It states that it should be substituted with “a mandatory obligation on medical practitioners to advise the pregnant woman that she has a statutory right to a reflection period, which she may exercise, at her own discretion”. “It causes difficulties for women, particularly where they have to travel from one country to another to see a GP or women who are in an abusive relationship, single mothers or others who have other children to look after. Those are situations where it does cause unnecessary hardship, and I think the suggestion that it should be an optional waiting period is a good one, and that’s really the way it should go.
Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy described the report as a “travesty and betrayal of women and unborn babies”. She claimed it “undermines freedom of conscience protections for healthcare workers” and “misleadingly presents abortion as healthcare”. Asked how hopeful he was that the changes would be implemented quickly, he said: “Time will tell. You have to hope that they will respond to the needs of women.”
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