Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It has been mentioned here that the three-day wait was brought in as a political sop to a certain extent to the Tánaiste, Deputy Coveney. That is quite obvious. It was an effort to get the Tánaiste over the line with regard to a Bill that he probably did not agree with at the start. There was a question about the rationale for this three-day wait. The rationale is that there are two lives involved in each pregnancy. The Bill says that. An abortion will end one of those lives forever. It is a life and death situation, and therefore time needs to be taken to make a decision. It is also understood that crisis is often the worst time to make a lifelong decision. In an effort to offer support, help and advice, those three days can be beneficial with regard to making a decision. People have asked what the medical evidence is for this three-day wait. The Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution heard evidence to say that most abortions do not have medical reasons. The majority of abortions are for socio-economic reasons, not medical reasons.

One thing that greatly disappoints me with the debate we have had over the past while is that so many people, especially on the Government side, have said that they are pro-choice but the economic policies they are pushing have forced many women to feel that they have no choice. Some 19 women who gave birth last year were homeless. One can imagine, if one was homeless and pregnant, the feeling one would have with regard to one's ability to proceed with that pregnancy. I imagine most women feel that they do not have a choice whatsoever. It is also disappointing that in all of this debate, there has been little effort to focus on the socio-economic causes, to try to fix the economic pressures that so many mothers feel that they have and that they cannot proceed to give birth to their child. There is no real effort in this debate to give confidence to mothers that they will have all of the necessary socio-economic supports to make a real decision on this issue. That is disappointing.

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