The government has not opposed a bill by Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger, which will abolish the three-day waiting period for an abortion on request.
The government did not oppose the bill in its first stage, which means it will now be escalated to a private member’s motion, and debated on by both government and opposition TDs.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the government would not block the bill on the first stage, which implies that should it end up going to a Dáil vote, government TDs would be given a free vote.
Minister Carroll MacNeill herself said, “I am broadly pro-choice and voted that way, but I am not unreservedly pro-choice,” and added, “I respect that there are so many different views on this issue.”
Coppinger’s bill looks to eliminate the current three-day waiting period for someone seeking an abortion, a provision which was removed from the initial debate surrounding abortion rights in 2018.
In 2018, the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment, which passed by 66.4% to 33.6%, saw the legalisation of abortion services in Ireland, and Coppinger was one of the most vocal elected representatives in liberalising Ireland’s abortion services.
Despite the overwhelming victory for the Repeal side in that referendum, Ireland’s reproductive health services are still lacking compared to the rest of Europe, with 2023 research from Labour finding that 11 out of 19 maternity hospitals provide abortion services, and just one in 10 GPs provide abortion services.
The three-day waiting period, specifically, has become a point of contention for reproductive rights activists, with 2025 research from the National Women’s Council finding that nearly 2,000 women have travelled from Ireland to the UK to seek an abortion since 2019.
Coppinger said in the Dáil this week, “there is an idea that women are rash, emotional, cannot make decisions for themselves and have not fully thought things through and that by putting in this place this barrier they will suddenly decide not to go ahead with a termination.”
“This does not recognise the amount of thought somebody has generally put into a decision before they even pick up a phone to make an appointment. It does not recognise the impact it is having on GP services.”
“The country voted strongly on the matter. The people who went out to vote in numbers did not vote to put this barrier in place,” she said.
The Dublin West TD said “the right, the religious right and the far-right are pushing back on rights we won in the 2000s and the 2010s. I ask that the government consider this as being an absolutely necessary reform that we have not had in the seven years since we voted on the matter, and not be convinced by these individuals.”