Holly Cairns: Moves Bill to Close Abortion Law Gaps
Holly Cairns moved the Reproductive Rights Amendment Bill 2026 in the Dáil, arguing that eight years after the repeal of the Eighth Amendment Ireland still fails women by leaving barriers in law and healthcare. She called for reforms to end mandatory waiting, protect doctors from criminal risk, and stop forcing women to travel for care.
What Holly Cairns said
Holly Cairns reminded the House that the public voted to remove abortion from the Constitution and put it into the hands of legislators. She argued no law is beyond improvement, highlighted the mandatory review built into the original legislation, and said the Marie O'Shea report identifies clear gaps that must now be closed.
Clinical barriers and criminalisation
Cairns described how clinical rules, such as the requirement in Cancora that doctors be certain a foetus will die within 28 days, force women to travel. She warned that the continued criminal exposure of doctors creates overly cautious decision-making and denies care to women who need it.
Waiting period and trust
Cairns attacked the three-day mandatory waiting period as unscientific and paternalistic, saying it pushes women toward the 12-week limit and strains GP services. Her Bill proposes making that waiting period optional and restoring trust in women and clinicians.
Consequences and next steps
Cairns framed the Bill as a reasonable, necessary step toward the compassionate, evidence-based system voters endorsed in 2018. She urged colleagues to act on the review recommendations rather than reopening old debates, emphasising the human cost of inaction and the need to legislate now.
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Chair Moggatt, Chair Comhairle, I move the Reproductive Rights Amendment Bill 2026. Next month marks eight years since we voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Eighth Amendment. It was an incredibly powerful moment for this country. But while the Eighth is gone, too many of the barriers it created to abortion care remain embedded in our law and our healthcare system. The reality is women are still travelling, still navigating crisis pregnancies far from home, far from their support networks, still being failed by a system that was meant to care for them. That is not what people voted for. There is an argument often made in this House that we must leave the legislation as it stands because it reflects what was put to the public in the referendum. This argument does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny. Ireland voted to take abortion out of the Constitution and into the hands of legislators in this House. No piece of legislation is set in stone. No law is beyond improvement. The public know that. The legislation also explicitly included a mandatory review after three years. Because of course, with a new law, gaps could emerge and would need to be addressed. The Marie O'Shea report clearly identified those gaps. It is now on us to close them. That is what this Bill aims to do. When I knocked on doors in Cork South West during the campaign, people told me over and over again how much the stories of women who were forced to travel impacted them. TFMR, Terminations for Medical Reasons, did extraordinary work during the campaign. They told their stories, bared their grief and trauma in the hope that it would mean no other woman, no other family would have to go what they went through. Eight years ago, people stood in polling booths all across this country and voted with those women in mind. And yet every year, approximately 240 women are still forced to travel to the UK to access abortion care. Many of them are travelling because they received a devastating diagnosis often after their 20-week scan. In Cancora currently, doctors must be certain that a foetus will die within 28 days of birth in order to provide abortion care. That certainty is very difficult to achieve and it leaves doctors with no other choice but to force women to travel abroad. There is no clinical justification for it. It is cruel and it is inhumane. Women deserve dignity, they deserve compassion and they deserve a healthcare system that addresses their needs rather than directing them to a ferry port. In the Marie O'Shea report, consultants were very clear on the impact the continued criminalisation of doctors is having. They have been left to navigate the grey areas of abortion law with the threat of criminal prosecution hanging over them, which results in overly cautious and risk-adverse decision-making and a tendency towards refusing to provide the care. Doctors are scared, and rightly so, anyone would be, with their licence and their livelihood on the line. There is no other area of healthcare where practitioners are exposed to criminal liability if things go wrong, and it is not fair on doctors, and it is deeply unfair on the women who are denied care as a result. One of the most glaring issues in the current legislation is the three-day mandatory waiting period. It pushes women closer to the 12-week limit and puts additional strain on already-stretched GP services. No other area of healthcare requires this, it is not grounded in science or any kind of evidence. It is only grounded in a profound mistrust of women. It is paternalistic and patronising, and it needs to go. This Bill proposes something far more reasonable, that the waiting period is optional, not mandatory. Ciancórla, at its core, it comes down to a fundamental question. Do we trust women or not? Do we trust doctors or not? These changes are not radical, they are reasonable, they are necessary, and they are long overdue. The public voted for a compassionate, evidence-based system of care. We have made progress, but we are not there yet. This legislation is an opportunity to take another step closer to that goal, not by reopening old arguments, but by addressing clear, identified gaps. Not by asking women to speak louder, but by finally listening to what they have already told us. The time for review has passed, now we need to act.
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