Abortion services need improvement, Northside TDs say

Northside TDs Grace Boland and Barry Heneghan were among the only government TDs who voted with the opposition last week on a vote to improve abortion access.

Boland and Heneghan joined Fine Gael TD Barry Ward and Fianna Fáil TD Catherine Ardagh in voting with the opposition on the issue, after the government allowed a fre vote on the issue.

A motion put forward by the Social Democrats looked to abolish the mandatory three-day waiting period for women seeking abortions, but under Irish law, are required to wait.

Party leader Holly Cairns said, “the mandatory three-day waiting period continues to create unnecessary distress and delay despite having absolutely no medical basis,” and that particular issue was not explained to voters in the 2018 referendum.

Cairns said, “these issues were all identified in the government’s expert review of the law three years ago. Three years later, women are still waiting.” 

Despite the government parties offering a free vote to TDs on this particular issue, the Soc Dems’ proposal was defeated by 85 votes to 30.

TDs from the Soc Dems, Labour, People Before Profit and the Greens all voted in favour of it, as did Ardagh, Boland, Heneghan, and Ward.

Sinn Féin abstained from the vote, which has been heavily criticised in progressive circles, with Northside TD Ruth Coppinger citing it as an example of Sinn Féin’s “drift to the right.”

Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson, David Culinane, defended the party’s stance on this particular issue, claiming that they had their own specific piece of legislation dedicated to abolishing the three-day wait, but to Coppinger, the principle of Sinn Féin abstaining on a social issue like this (and not working with other parties of the left) has confirmed their rightward shift.

Coppinger claimed that Sinn Féin are “responding to the far-right and other individuals who have criticised it on the vote recently.”

“Now, it is circling the wagons, and women’s rights have to pay the price. It really is shocking, but it is good to bring clarity for people as to where parties stand.”

Sinn Féin TD Ann Graves said that the current three-day legislation “highlights serious imbalances in access to care, significant geographic variation in access to services, the underdevelopment of regional services and barriers such as the three-day wait.”

Graves said that Sinn Féin had specific issues with the Soc Dems’ proposal to decriminalise medical practitioners who “wilfully act illegally beyond the scope of the act.

She said that Sinn Féin’s proposal would offer “practical and compassionate change.”

She noted an independent 2023 review, commissioned by then-Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, found that there was a lack of GPs providing access to early medical terminations.

The 2023 O’Shea report also found that hundreds of Irish women were still availing of abortion services in the United Kindgom despite abortion services becoming legal in Ireland in the wake of the 2018 referendum.

Graves said that the current Irish medical landscape has a “postcode lottery” in access to reproductive care. 

She noted “only 10% to 15% of GPs provide early medical termination services, which is less than ten in some counties. The review recommended a geospatial analysis of services to identify the biggest gaps. Sinn Féin supports the abolition of the mandatory three-day wait for an early-pregnancy abortion.”

“We introduced legislation that would remove the mandatory three-day wait for access to an abortion during early pregnancy,” she explained.

“We have a long history in this country of scandals in women’s healthcare. The law is the law and medical practitioners should not be given carte blanche to act outside the law,” the Dublin Fingal East TD said.

The principle of Sinn Féin not working with potential coalition partners of the left on a major social issue does present the dilemma facing Sinn Féin.

On the evening of Thursday, May 14, the Irish Times/TG4 published a poll detailing voter habits ahead of the May 22 by-election in Dublin Central.

The crunch poll found that while councillor Janice Boylan is likely to top the poll on first preferences, she would face a struggle to win the seat as Sinn Féin would not receive transfers from other progressive parties.

Northside People analysis from the May 6 issue found that the Social Democrats have proven more transfer-friendly in recent elections and enjoy major transfer support from the likes of Labour, the Greens and People Before Profit, thus putting Daniel Ennis in with the best chance of winning the seat.

Should Sinn Féin lose what should be a winnable seat in the backyard of party leader Mary Lou McDonald, it would raise an awkward question as to why progressive voters are being turned off by Sinn Féin in yet another election.

On the government side, where TDs were given a free vote, Boland was the only Fine Gael TD to vote in favour of the motion, and said her support was based in the O’Shea report.

The 2023 report found that Ireland’s abortion services were lacking despite the 2018 referendum to liberalise Ireland’s abortion laws, and that hundreds of Irish women were still travelling to the United Kingdom to carry out an abortion.

The Dublin Fingal West TD told the Dáil “while aspects of this bill may require amendment and careful scrutiny, I believe that the essence of what it seeks to address deserves debate and consideration.”

She said that at a fundamental level, the issue is about women’s healthcare.

“We know there are women in Ireland who are still being forced to travel abroad for care in cases involving fatal foetal abnormalities because clinicians cannot provide certainty within the narrow legal definitions contained in the 2018 Act.”

The Fine Gael TD said, “as a mum to two daughters, I do not believe that compassionate care should stop at the airport gate.”

She explained, “the O’Shea report concluded that aspects of the law were not operating as intended and were causing real distress to women and clinicians, and the report questioned whether the mandatory three-day waiting period was evidence-based and recommended that it be optional.”

She noted, “it is important that we are careful and evidence-based in how we interpret those figures. We do not know why they did not proceed. It may be that they miscarried, travelled, exceeded gestational limits or experienced other barriers accessing care, and we know that those in coercive relationships and in the postcode lottery that our healthcare system is have unequal access to healthcare.”

Boland said, “that is why this issue warrants examination by the health committee and further examination by this house.”

Independent TD Barry Heneghan said the debate boiled down to “one simple choice – do we trust women?”

The Dublin Bay North TD said, “this is a very personal decision, it is a healthcare decision, and women must be placed at the centre of it.”

“An abortion is not something any woman or any couple enters into lightly, and by the time that decision has been reached, there has already been reflection, and there has already been discussion, fear, emotion and heartbreak. This is why the mandatory three-day waiting period is wrong.”

Heneghan said, “for many women in my constituency, this was a huge issue that they spoke to me about on the doorsteps. The reflection has already happened, so this requirement can feel infantilising.”

“It can feel like a judgment on them for coming to a decision about their body. For many women, those three days occur during an incredibly painful time,” he said.

Heneghan said that the existing law is “punishing” people who are not in a financial position to leave Ireland.

“We must remember that every one of these circumstances is different. Some of them might be facing huge stress or in abusive relationships where they are forced into an act that they do not want to do. Do we trust women or not? The only person who can fully understand the woman is the woman herself,” he said.

“We should welcome this bill and the opportunity it presents to bring in enactments and change, as we said during the referendum. Dublin Bay North, which is my constituency, had over 500 campaigners and the largest turnout and delivery of “Yes” votes in the country. We won by a three-to-one result in favour of Repeal,” he noted.

Despite the government’s free vote on the issue, only Boland and Heneghan joined the opposition in voting for it.