There were some important political exchanges this week as the Oireachtas Health Committee examined the Health (Abolition of the Three Day Wait Rule) Amendment Bill.
The Sinn Féin proposal would scrap the mandatory reflection period before a woman can have an abortion, a measure introduced as a safeguard which supporters say has saved thousands of lives with more than 10,000 women not returning after a first appointment to undergo an abortion.
Scrutiny of the proposal has gained a certain momentum in the last two weeks.
I spoke to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín who has sharply criticised the HSE’s position on the Bill.
This week, witnesses giving evidence from the HSE, before the Health Committee, argued that the three-day wait should be scrapped – despite the fact it is highly unusual for the health service to advocate for a change to the law.
He agreed that it was unusual for this to happen. The Meath TD said that the HSE has taken a position on the Bill that was not far off that of People before Profit, known for their extreme views on abortion.
“It’s very clear that the Minister and the Department of Health are working hand in glove with Sinn Fein on this bill. I know that the minister has met with Sinn Féin, and the department has met with Sinn Fein at least two occasions in relation to the drawing of the bill, and in the creation of amendments to the bill.
“There is this idea that the government has a free vote on this, yet the machinery of government is working in favour of this bill, It looks like to me.
“It is unprecedented that you would have the HSE becoming a political lobby group in terms of a piece of legislation. I’ve never seen the HSE or any government department become a political lobby group in this manner, and the agency took a very strong political stand. It’s a stand that wouldn’t be far off People before Profit’s in relation to their position on this.
“I think it’s wrong. I think the HSE should be apolitical. I don’t think it should be lobbying for fitness, for political change in the manner which it has. I don’t think they would be doing so unless they were given the go ahead by the minister to do so.
“The HSE has completely ignored the fact that the vast majority of abortions are not medical abortions – they’re socioeconomic abortions. Therefore there is the issue of whether there’s a chemical need or not – but that appears to be irrelevant to them.
“There’s also the fact that the HSE has not bothered to study and to talk to doctors. to survey doctors. It has not bothered to talk to mothers who had failed to return after a first appointment, and who kept their baby.
“So there has been a clear lack of research. They haven’t even bothered to gather the evidence before they came to their conclusion. So therefore, it’s not empirical; It is purely ideological,” the TD told Gript.
It’s worth reading some more of the debate on the Bill, and the arguments being put forward for its retention, because as always, most of the media seems intent on devoting pages of coverage to the reasons it should be removed.
Deputy Michael Healy-Rae for instance, hours before he was attacked in broad daylight returning from the Dail, spoke on the Bill to say that it was flawed. He said that “the mantra of the parties and politicians who were selling the [repeal] proposal at the time was that safeguards would be in place, that there would be a three-day waiting period and that they would ensure that the only people who would make this life-changing decision for so many people would take due time, care and consideration and be offered every support in the world for alternatives.”
“Now the very politicians who sold it in that way are now doing a complete U-turn,” said the Kerry Deputy. “In particular, I want to mention the people in Sinn Féin and the Labour Party who have already spoken here.
“I think of the irony. We are at 65,000 abortions – the number is skyrocketing – and at this critical time we are saying that we will take away the safeguard we did have, which offered ladies more support about alternatives and which is what we call a cooling-off period that offered them a chance to think. That is inherently wrong,” said Healy-Rae in comments that weren’t picked up by the media, while the unrelated attack was headline news that evening.
There were many other thought-provoking contributions.
Peter Roche TD was one of them, who asked: “Is there any procedure in general practice whose direct and intended purpose is to end a life?:
Another came on Wednesday, when Senator Sharon Keogan challenged the HSE on their silence when reports surfaced showing the negative sides of abortion.
The Senator was speaking to witnesses appearing before the Joint Oireachtas Committee – which included Dr Aoife Mullally, HSE clinical lead for abortion, Dr Cliona Murphy, the HSE’s Clinical Director for the national women and infants health programme, and Dr Mary Horgan, who is Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health.
She referenced research from University College Cork, again largely buried in the media, that referred to the trauma doctors were reporting having carried out abortions – including getting physically sick in hospital corridors.
She then contrasted this with the HSE’s seeming willingness to undermine a safeguard such as the three day waiting period.
“Okay, so we have a massive amount of testimony about the minor logistical inconveniences the three-day wait places on a woman’s schedule,” she said. “As policy makers, we must weigh competing interests.”
“Why does this committee place a higher legislative priority on eliminating a minor 72-hour scheduling inconvenience than it does on protecting the thousands of human lives statistically proven to be saved by the very same reflective window? Why are you not putting more serious emphasis on that?”
She continued: “Some years ago the UCC research involved some of your colleagues reporting cases where babies survived an abortion procedure. Doctors interviewed described not knowing what to do in those circumstances and finding the experiences extremely traumatic. One doctor described getting sick in the corridor after performing an abortion.
“Whenever information as serious as this emerges, there’s total silence from the HSE rather than an open acknowledgement of the concerns raised and a clear response [as to] what action is required.”
The Senator said that the same silence greeted the story that emerged earlier this year, after a reply from a parliamentary question confirmed the number of babies who survived the abortion procedure in Ireland.
It was 108 – and that only accounts for the four years from 2019 to 2023. And still, to this day, the HSE still has not bothered to produce guidelines for what happens when said babies survive abortion.
Senator Keogan then asked: “Specifically, how were the findings of the UCC research I just referenced dealt with internally by the HSE?”
“More generally,” she pressed, “What support does the HSE provide to healthcare workers who experience trauma after performing or assisting the abortions?”
As to be expected, there was very little given in response regarding the UCC research, or the trauma healthcare workers may be undergoing. But then again, one of the HSE’s key witnesses is Dr Aoife Mullally, who will herself be speaking at an abortion “training day” in Trinity this Saturday.
The HSE’s Clinical Director for its Women and Infants Programme, Dr Cliona Murphy, who sat beside her at the hearings this week, is a consultant obstetrician who campaigned for Repeal. We will be holding our breath before any such national conference involving HSE bosses is organised on the need for conscientious objection provisions for medics.
So it is no surprise that the HSE renewed its commitment to taking a wrecking ball to the three-day-wait. And I describe it as a wrecking ball because there’s a big difference between the HSE stating clinical and operational facts, and taking a position.
The HSE should be a neutral healthcare provider, as our national, tax-payer funded health service – so why does it have the bare-faced audacity to push for something so ideological?
“There is no clinical requirement for a mandatory three-day waiting period,” claimed Dr Murphy, adding that the HSE had no objection to removing it.
Dr Murphy’s job, and that of everyone in the HSE, is to present the clinical facts – not to take contested positions or to make the law. How is it appropriate for the HSE, as a State body delivering abortion, to advocate for a change to the legislation governing such services?
The HSE’s clinical witnesses, who just so happen to be abortion advocates, have continued to lazily prop up the argument of “international evidence” against the reflection period – leaning like a broken record on a single review by the World Health Organisation. Similarly, last week, the Irish College of General Practitioners, rattled on about the same survey which does not specifically deal with Ireland.
The doctors group was then forced to admit that it did not ballot or survey its own members – including the more than 400 GPs who provide abortions – before it enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon for scrapping a key safeguard.
It seems like the HSE will caution against using just about anything else as evidence if it doesn’t come from the WHO – including the fact that 10,534 women did not return for a second abortion appointment between 2019 and 2024.
The HSE witnesses this week said the numbers who did not return shouldn’t be interpreted as evidence. Why? Because the HSE does not know the precise reasons women did not come back for the second appointment. But that’s on them.
Let me get this straight – the HSE is cheering for the removal of the wait, but it does not keep any data on why women who attended an initial consultation did not return for the abortion? What sort of health service doesn’t bother to carry out research on what happened for those ten thousand women?
The research it has relied upon and cited all the time by witnesses does not include a single woman who carried on with her pregnancy rather than proceeding with abortion after the three-day wait. The voices of this important group of women have been entirely missing.
That is a glaring failure on the part of the HSE. And they also need to answer a fundamental question: why are they taking the very unusual step of calling for changes to the law when they haven’t even done the basic research on this issue?