{"id":539058,"date":"2026-06-17T02:05:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T02:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/539058\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T02:05:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T02:05:21","slug":"taoiseach-tanaiste-minister-for-health-to-back-sf-bill-ending-mandatory-three-day-abortion-wait-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/539058\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach, T\u00e1naiste, Minister for Health to back SF Bill ending mandatory three-day abortion wait \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taoiseach, T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Health have expressed support for a Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> Bill to remove the mandatory three-day waiting period for an abortion<\/a> after a first medical consultation.<\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> told the D\u00e1il<\/a> he would back the Health (Abolition of Three Day Wait Rule) (Amendment) Bill to go to the next stage in the Oireachtas. <\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to vote for this to go through to committee stage,\u201d the Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> leader said. <\/p>\n

He said he believed there may at that point be a need for \u201cconsequential amendments\u201d which Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> had flagged with Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s health spokesman David Cullinane<\/a>, who introduced the Bill.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for T\u00e1naiste and Fine Gael<\/a> leader Simon Harris<\/a> confirmed his support for the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA free vote will be in place for all Government TDs, as always [on matters of conscience]. The T\u00e1naiste will support the Bill to remove the three-day waiting period. That is his personal view and is reflective of the engagement he has had with women and medical professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Carroll MacNeill also confirmed her support for removing the three-day waiting period.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs she has previously stated, she sees merit in abolishing the requirement and has engaged extensively with stakeholders on the issue throughout her political career,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Responding to Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> leader Mary Lou McDonald<\/a>, Martin said he recognised this as a \u201cvery sensitive issue\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a range of opinions and perspectives within this House, and indeed among the public,\u201d he said, adding that a lot of progress had been made since the referendum vote in 2018 to repeal the Eighth Amendment.<\/p>\n

Martin said he was \u201caware of the arguments for and against the removal\u201d of the three-day waiting period. He called for a respectful debate in the House and said he would vote to move the Bill to committee stage.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in is to introduce the legislation in a private members\u2019 motion on Tuesday evening. McDonald said the three-day wait \u201cis causing real damage to women\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pushed some beyond the 12-week period, meaning that they can\u2019t access services here in Ireland and have to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said women who have suffered sexual assault or live with domestic violence or coercive control \u201care left in a really awful situation and it\u2019s meant a real hardship for very many women who struggle to get a GP appointment in their county\u201d.<\/p>\n

McDonald said \u201cchanging the law, removing the three-day wait would ensure that women can access healthcare when they need it\u201d. <\/p>\n

The D\u00e1il will vote on the issue on Wednesday evening. When he introduced the Bill last month, Cullinane described it as \u201ctargeted\u201d and said it \u201cdoes just one thing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not require an abortion to happen on the day of a first consultation. But where a woman is certain that this is what she wants, it allows her to make that decision for herself, in her own time, about her own pregnancy, without a mandatory delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats<\/a> Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill was rejected last month<\/a> by 85 to 30 votes with 36 abstentions, which included all Sinn F\u00e9in TDs.<\/p>\n

The abortion legislation called for the removal of the mandatory three-day wait but also sought to provide clarity on terminations for medical reasons, including fatal foetal abnormalities, and would end the criminalisation of doctors who face jail terms of up to 14 years.<\/p>\n

The Pro Life Campaign has called on TDs to vote against the legislation and \u201ccommit instead to supporting measures to reduce abortions and provide greater support for women and families\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spokeswoman Eil\u00eds Mulroy said the Bill \u201ccompletely ignores the incredible life-saving impact this safeguard has had\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbortion now ends the lives of one in every six babies in Ireland and the three-day wait is one of the few remaining safeguards that has demonstrably saved lives,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFar from being progressive, it would be a deeply regressive step to do away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach, T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Health have expressed support for a Sinn F\u00e9in Bill to remove the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[28810,9,10,48,18,13,14,4771,553,6,19,17,5002,11,12,15,16,16594,5765,5,44,47,18578,7,8],"class_list":["post-539058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abortion","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-david-cullinane","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mary-lou-mcdonald","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-sinn-fein","tag-social-democrats","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116763002503357204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}