Good Friday Agreement
Dail Éireann — 2023-05-03
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Bríd Smith (PBP), Dublin South-Central

I will raise the question of how a shared island works out when it comes to women's healthcare. When the repeal vote was won almost five years ago, it was famously declared that the North would be next. Now, however, we find that the North is way ahead of the Republic in its delivery of abortion care for women. Women have considerably more abortion rights in the North. There is no three-day wait. They have access up to 24 weeks for pill and surgical abortions, with a multidisciplinary team agreeing on the procedure. Abortion is fully decriminalised and it is legal to perform an abortion in cases of severe foetal abnormality, with no time limit. All of these things are denied to women in the South and therefore, they have to travel. What does the Taoiseach say about trying to have harmony in abortion care North and South? Was this part of the discussion? I add that the North has free contraception for everybody, not according to age, which we were promised but still do not have.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-05-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-05-03