Barrister Marie O’Shea, who chaired a review into Ireland’s abortion law, has countered accusations by a Fine Gael TD that her proposed changes to the legislation could lead to legal challenges. O’Shea told a hearing of the Oireachtas Committee on Health that there would be risks to failing to implement change and that such failures could prompt new apologies to women from the country’s Taoiseach. The barrister has called for the decriminalisation of doctors and the removal of the three-day waiting period before access to termination medication. She has also demanded improved guidelines on conscientious objection and greater flexibility surrounding abortions in instances of fatal foetal abnormality.
During the hearing, Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan contended that changes in legislation would provoke a legal challenge. He insisted that the services envisioned by present law should remain in place.
O’Shea suggested that the legal risks to women and the Taoiseach’s office stemmed from failures to make alterations to the law. She cited cases such as Mellet vs Ireland and Whelan vs Ireland, where women had been forced to travel to the UK for abortions following diagnoses of fatal foetal abnormality. The UN’s human rights committee had ordered the government to pay these women damages of €30,000 each.
O’Shea also informed TDs that medical professionals had confirmed that the three-day waiting period had no medical basis and that there were no legal grounds for its existence. She highlighted that during research, almost all women questioned believed that the waiting period should be removed. Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane argued that her findings stood on their own merits and were not open to political interpretation. Fianna Fáil Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee enquired whether the waiting period could be judged unwarranted. O’Shea agreed, and Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín affirmed that such a period could be regarded as “stigmatising”.
The review’s recommendations have created unease among senior members of government concerned about perceptions that alterations to current legislation would breach promises made to the electorate. O’Shea remarked that courage and leadership were needed to adopt the recommended changes, and that the electorate could not have envisaged the difficulties arising from amendments to the law when voting on repeal of the eighth amendment.
