Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Some words jump out from the study published today on unplanned pregnancy support and abortion care conducted by Dr. Catherine Conlon and her colleagues at Trinity College Dublin. The purpose of the study was to discover the experiences of women who have sought to access abortion under our abortion legislation. The words expressed by women include "awful", "draining", "arduous", "harrowing" and "distressing". This really shows just how inadequate our current legislative structure is to meet the real needs of women in crisis pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy. These are the women we voted to support in 2018 in the repeal referendum when the people voted with a 66.4% majority to ensure women would have access to abortion services in Ireland. Yet what we see from the study published today is that the paternalistic shadow cast by the eighth amendment is still over our system of abortion care provision.

The National Women's Council points out that it is clear from the experiences of the women expressed through the study that significant systemic improvements are required. Women share the anguish and distress of being deemed ineligible for care on the grounds of fatal foetal anomalies, the disempowering impact of the three-day wait and the shock many women have had at the lack of GPs providing care in rural communities. We know that 13 counties in Ireland have fewer than ten GPs willing to provide abortion services. Many counties have no provision at all for women. Therefore they must travel outside the county to avail of services, twice in many cases because of the three-day wait period prescribed in the legislation which is not based on any medical necessity. We know that the three-day wait period in particular causes real hardship for those women who struggle to get off work, those on low incomes and those at the end of the first trimester.

We know that last year more than 200 women had to travel to Britain to obtain abortions because the law here does not meet their needs. The old Irish solution to an Irish problem phenomenon has not gone away. Every woman who takes that lonely journey represents a failure by the Government and the State to deliver on the mandate the people gave us in 2018. Will the Taoiseach confirm when the review of the abortion legislation will be published? Will the Taoiseach confirm that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and the Government will ensure the review will address the inadequacies in the legislation, as illustrated by the evidence gathered by the team at Trinity College and the experiences so graphically expressed in the report by women describing how they had fared in seeking to access abortion care here?

We heard about awful scenarios relating to women who were awaiting diagnosis as to whether an anomaly was "fatal enough" to enable a termination after 12 weeks. Some of the definitions in the legislation are deeply problematic not only for women and their families, but also for doctors and medics who face criminalisation under this legislation if they do not get it right.

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