DR BOYLAN: WOMEN IN DANGER IF NEW LAW IS DELAYED
After landslide vote in favour of ending abortion ban
PRESSURE was mounting last night on the Government to fast-track abortion legislation after the landslide 66% to 34% referendum vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment.
As Dr Peter Boylan said that delaying introducing the legislation was not an option, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and his Labour counterpart Brendan Howlin said their parties would cooperate to bring legislation to the Dáil before the Oireachtas breaks for the summer.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Simon Harris said his officials would work through
the summer, producing legislation to pass ‘in autumn’. That pledge represents a shorter timeline than that outlined by him during the campaign.
In his appeal to fast-track the legislation Dr Boylan said: ‘One of the problems with the current legislation is that if I’m looking after a woman who is pregnant and is ill, I have to make a decision as to when her life is threatened not when she is going to get sicker… that’s an incredibly low bar to set as a standard of care in pregnancy, in Ireland, in a civilised country, in 2018, that a woman should not die in pregnancy is too low a bar to set.
‘I think people understood that. That still stands, so my understanding is that the Government are gopossible.
‘An obligation to honour will of the people’
ing to try and get the legislation through as fast as they can.
‘I don’t know what stage they’re at with preparing the legislation. That’s a matter obviously for whatever the system is with the Attorney-General… Without delay because it’s not for any political reason – it’s because the women need it, it should be done as fast as possible.’
In an exclusive interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday at Dublin Castle yesterday, Simon Harris was asked if he would agree with calls to expedite the legislation in the wake of a higher than expected majority in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment.
He revealed that he will go to Cabinet at the first opportunity but offered a more cautious timetable. The Health Minister said he would be putting a hold on holidays for some staff. ‘I’ll be asking my officials in the department to work on this during the summer, and to publish it as quickly as possible. I’d like to see it through the Oireachtas in the autumn. But as quickly as I absolutely want this into law this year, as early as possible this year.
‘Realistically I think that timeframe is probably in the autumn.’
As counting got under way yesterday, the Yes vote turned out to be far higher than expected, garnering 66.4% support.
The Taoiseach, in a tightly stagemanaged announcement at which he ignored requests to take questions, said the result was ‘resounding’. The national Yes vote was almost exactly twice that of the No vote. There were 1,429,981 Yes votes, compared to 723,632 No ballots. More than two million people voted in the referendum in a remarkable turnout. Only one constituency, Donegal, voted no by a margin of 52% to 48%.
The scale of the vote led to calls throughout yesterday to expedite the legislation to allow Irish women be treated in Ireland when they seek abortions, up to 12 weeks.
In the political realm, Fianna Fáil’s Mr Martin and Labour’s Mr Howlin said that the Dáil must start the process to enact abortion legislation before TDs and senators take their summer holidays.
Mr Martin said at Dublin Castle last night: ‘I spoke with the minister this morning and I think that he is anxious to get the legislation into the house, certainly before the summer. We should aim for the second stage debate before the summer and then get onto the committee stage. We have an obligation to honour the will of the people, to reflect it faithfully in the legislation.’
At second stage general principles of a bill are debated and it can be agreed to proceed to Committee stage.
Mr Howlin said: ‘We now have to act on it because the people have made it very clear, have given a very clear instruction to us and I’m very conscious that tomorrow people will be planning journeys to England. We need to get legislation to enact the people’s will and do that as soon as possible and quite frankly, waiting until the end of the year is not good enough. I think we can actually start a second stage debate within the next few weeks and make progress on it before the Dáil recesses in the summer.’
Mr Harris said he believed the cross-party support which was evident through the campaign would continue. ‘I’m likely to reach to opposition parties in the coming days to ask them to meet me, so that we can agree a timetable for this,’ he said. ‘We obviously have a lot of work to do to draft the actual final Bill, which obviously we couldn’t do before today. But we’ll be working on that as an absolute priority and I hope that the Government will give me approval on Tuesday.
‘I’ll meet with the opposition parties to try and agree a way forward. And I’m greatly encouraged by the fact that even TDs who voted No
and campaigned for a No are largely saying that they respect the will of the people. That will be helpful in terms of getting the legislation in place as quickly as possible.’
The Dáil is expected to rise for the summer in the first week of July and return at the end of September. The Budget, which usually dominates political activity in the autumn, will be announced in October.
Despite the huge victory for the repeal campaign, there are questions over what happens next and how a 12-week limit will function. The Government has said they hope the service will be GP led, using abortion pills – but the process will require scans, something doctors say will cause difficulties.
The National Association of General Practitioners is set to convene an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the issue. Mr Harris has previously given loose commitments to increase funding. He’s said he expects GPs to be co-operative. ‘Of course there will be some [GPs] who don’t want to be a part of it, and that’s okay,’ said Mr Harris. ‘In the law I have put a conscientious objection in place. But you’re talking about roughly, per GP, the potential of dealing with two crisis pregnancies a year.’