Dr. Abigail Aiken:

Although the law in Ireland does allow health care professionals to treat post-abortion complications or provide counselling and allows the provision of information on travelling for an abortion, there is what my colleague has referred to as a chilling effect. The Senator will see in some of the quotes included in the packet that health care professionals do not feel comfortable or feel there is a risk in going too far because the law does not prescribe exactly what they can say. When it tries to legislate for what is really within good informed consent or between a doctor and a patient, it runs into trouble. That is why there is are medical oversight bodies to decide that rather than governments. It has been made very difficult for providers to do post-abortion services well because there is no continuity of care. If someone says he or she has carried out an abortion, he or she may not be telling everything. He or she may have done something that is illegal and does not feel he or she can say that. As someone quoted in the packet says, their first thought should not have been how they were going to lie. It interferes with what should be a good trusting relationship between a patient and a doctor, whether before or after an abortion.