Call for Tánaiste to scrap three-day delay when carrying out abortions

SIR,

In The Shadow of The Eighth’, Dr Peter Boylan’s excellent account of Irish medical professionals’ role in the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment, reveals that the three-day enforced delay that people in Ireland must undergo before receiving an abortion was included in the legislation as ‘horse-trading’ to convince Tánaiste Simon Coveney to support Repeal.

Dr Boylan rejects this enforced delay as medically unnecessary. The Abortion Rights Campaign would go further and say it discriminates enormously against most people as they try to access their right to an abortion.

Someone living in rural isolation may have to make not one but two 100-mile round trips to an abortion provider.

People have to arrange for not one but two days off work, or two days of child care.

Vulnerable people who might not be able to disclose their reasons for two doctor visits in four days must resort to subterfuge not once but twice: for example a domestic violence victim, a child unable to tell their parents, or someone in direct provision.

On top of it all, there is a significant financial burden in all of this.

We are sure these hardships were not Mr Coveney’s intention. I would urge him, therefore, to consider people who are not as fortunate as he is and campaign for the unnecessary, discriminatory enforced delay to be removed from Irish legislation on abortion,

Sincerely,

Kathy D’Arcy,

South Terrace,

Cork city