Bill introduced to abolish three-day abortion wait period in Ireland

There have been calls to abolish the three-day abortion wait period

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the Government is not opposing the legislation at the first stage.

Ireland's current abortion legislation includes a mandatory three-day waiting period after a patient's initial consultation with a doctor and before the medical procedure.

Speaking about the introduction of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) (Amendment) Bill, Ruth Coppinger shared: "You can buy Viagra over the counter ... You can have rhinoplasty. There is no mandatory wait. The regret rate for rhinoplasty is 40 per cent.”

She said this legislation is "based on the 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".

The news comes after the Irish Family Planning Association confirmed there's no scientific support behind the mandatory abortion waiting period.

The report said that "mandatory waiting periods inject an unfounded concern about decisional uncertainty in relation to pregnancy into laws."

It also "demonstrates a distrust of pregnant women’s capacity to make autonomous decisions about their reproductive health and future."

The World Health Organisation has also called for waiting periods for abortion to be abolished.

WHO also views them as "medically unnecessary barriers" that often heighten anxiety and stress, and also demean a woman's ability to make her own medical decisions. Women in Ireland can have an abortion if their pregnancy is no more than 12 weeks.

This means 84 days since the first day of your last period.

After 12 weeks, you can only have an abortion in exceptional circumstances, including if your life is at risk, or if the pregnancy will cause serious harm to your health.

You can also have an abortion after 12 weeks if the pregnancy is likely to lead to the death of the fetus either before or within 28 days of birth, because of a problem with its development.