Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 11 October 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution
International Developments in the Provision of Health Care Services in the Area of Termination of Pregnancies: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and World Health Organization
1:00 pm
Dr. Ronald Johnson:
In most countries oversight is by the Department or Ministry of Health. The WHO would be very willing to work with the Department of Health to help to develop the systems of supervision and oversight.
I cannot answer the question about costs. The cost of an abortion varies across the world from being free to $1,000. Women in New Zealand and the United Kingdom receive a free service. The cost of an illegal abortion can be astronomical. There are so many technicalities in estimating the cost for a particular system and we do not have the information necessary to process it, but we could certainly sit down and work with the committee on that issue.