AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
Why MANage women and make them wait at a crisis point in their lives? The question arises after Sinn Féin’s Bill to remove the mandatory three-day wait before their second abortion consultation. Thankfully, the Bill was passed by 86 votes to 70. But here’s the thing: a majority of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael members, mostly men, including Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, given a free vote in a matter of conscience, voted no.
Their reason – possibly with one eye on conservative voters – was “not to start unpicking the carefully calibrated terms of the 2018 Referendum”, as O’Callaghan put it.
It would be wonderful if all pregnancies were wanted, and some may well be happy accidents. But for many women, the positive reading on a pregnancy testing kit can be a cause of consternation and dread. Unplanned pregnancies may happen for many reasons – contraceptive failure, over-reliance on natural methods, or the sex may not have been consensual, for instance where there is coercive control or rape.
Behind a woman’s reactions may lie all kinds of problems, from relationship difficulties, financial constraints and being single, to being at a critical point in studies or career, or in a small number of cases, fatal foetal abnormality or a threat to health.
Around 50% of pregnancies are unplanned, according to the United Nations Population Fund, and in Europe and the US about 60% of those pregnancies will end in termination. In Ireland that figure appears to be lower; there were 54,125 births and 10,711 abortions last year. Women have had the right to choose and to have abortions up to 12 weeks’ pregnancy in Ireland since 2019, following the Referendum.
What was a controversial issue is now treated as an aspect of reproductive healthcare, and that mandatory wait, which applies to no other medical procedure, will end.
But do these ‘nay-sayers’ believe that women can’t be trusted to know their own minds? Do they never talk to their wives, partners or daughters about reproductive matters or understand what it is like to face an unplanned pregnancy? And what about male responsibility? There is only one immaculate conception.
The vote against removing the wait runs contrary to the evidence of the Irish Family Planning Association’s (IFPA) data for abortion (2021-24), confirming “the reality that the vast majority (98%) of clients who attend for a first consultation go on to have an abortion. Nothing in our data indicates that the three-day wait influences women’s decisions about pregnancy.”
The figures also run contrary to the findings of the 2023 review of Ireland’s abortion law and the WHO’s recommendation against enforced delays.
Aren’t those ‘no’ votes a diluted version of the shameful history of paternalistic control over women’s reproduction by Church and State? Consider how women were punished for pregnancy outside marriage. Look at the Mother & Baby Homes, forced adoption, or the lack of contraception until the Magee case in 1973. Or the Tuam scandal, with 800 unregistered baby deaths and a mass grave in a septic tank; the X Case, where a suicidal, raped 14-year-old was prevented from travelling to the UK for an abortion; and the tragic case of Savita Halappanavar, denied an abortion to save her life from sepsis, which helped to shock Ireland into holding the 2018 referendum to Repeal the Eighth Amendment.
When it comes to abortion before 12 weeks, time can be of the essence. The number of weeks in the first trimester is calculated from the end of the last period, not from conception, which is difficult to date exactly. If a woman has irregular periods, she may not realise she is pregnant until she is already considered to be eight weeks’ pregnant. Medical abortions are available only up to nine weeks – between nine and 12 weeks, a surgical termination is required.
“We know from our service that the mandatory waiting period has material consequences: it causes stress, distress and delay, and can push women over the 12-week gestation limit for care — a consequence that causes disproportionate harm to people already facing systemic barriers and inequalities,” points out a statement from the IFPA.
It’s a relief that the mandatory wait has gone, but we need more politicians to be forward-thinking and clear-thinking – this wasn’t a vote about abortion but about paternalistic attitudes and stopping MANaging women.
