Dr. Meabh Ní Bhuinneáin:

Yes. The restrictive practice in Germany is that the counselling is supposed to be directive counselling as opposed to non-directive. Germany is, however, one of the group of countries, along with the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavian countries, where abortion rates have fallen. It is not necessarily clear that abortion rates would fall immediately here because it would depend on the strength of the education programme and access to contraception, including post-abortal care contraception, as the professor has alluded to, and planned contraceptive services in a more informal delivery system than we currently have. In the long-term, if there is liberal termination of pregnancy legislation, we would anticipate a fall in the numbers of women seeking termination. In the short term, unless it is matched by other sex education programmes and other changes in contraception delivery, we might not see that fall immediately.