Paul Murphy: 12-week limit treats pregnant people as vessels
Paul Murphy of People Before Profit backs the Social Democrats' bill to implement the official review of Ireland's abortion law but warns it is only the bare minimum. He urges full decriminalisation, the abolition of the three-day wait, and a broader right to choose beyond the current 12-week limit.
Paul Murphy says the bill implements several recommendations from the official review: decriminalising abortion in practice, reviewing the treatment of fatal fetal anomalies so families are not forced to travel, and ending the patronising three-day wait. He welcomes those steps while noting some details should be strengthened at committee stage.
Murphy highlights remaining restrictions: the law still includes a strict 12-week time limit and retains section 23 rather than fully removing criminal sanctions. He argues the optional three-day wait is insufficient because women can make decisions without a legislated waiting period.
The speaker warns that after 12 weeks pregnant people are effectively denied bodily autonomy and remain forced to travel for care. He cites the projection that if the government does not act by 2030, over 1,300 women will be forced to travel, and notes intimate partner violence and other life changes can arise after 12 weeks.
Murphy frames the debate as part of a larger fight against conservative and far-right attempts to roll back rights. He calls for a renewed abortion rights movement to press for the full right to choose and stronger protections for pregnant people in Ireland.
Summary of the bill
Paul Murphy says the bill implements several recommendations from the official review: decriminalising abortion in practice, reviewing the treatment of fatal fetal anomalies so families are not forced to travel, and ending the patronising three-day wait. He welcomes those steps while noting some details should be strengthened at committee stage.
What remains unchanged
Murphy highlights remaining restrictions: the law still includes a strict 12-week time limit and retains section 23 rather than fully removing criminal sanctions. He argues the optional three-day wait is insufficient because women can make decisions without a legislated waiting period.
Consequences and statistics
The speaker warns that after 12 weeks pregnant people are effectively denied bodily autonomy and remain forced to travel for care. He cites the projection that if the government does not act by 2030, over 1,300 women will be forced to travel, and notes intimate partner violence and other life changes can arise after 12 weeks.
Political stakes
Murphy frames the debate as part of a larger fight against conservative and far-right attempts to roll back rights. He calls for a renewed abortion rights movement to press for the full right to choose and stronger protections for pregnant people in Ireland.
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Transcript
Thanks a lot and thanks to the Social Democrats for bringing forward this bill which People For Profit supports. It really is the bare minimum that the government should be doing to implement the recommendations of its own official review of the abortion law. That review recommended decriminalizing abortion, reviewing the treatment of fatal fetal anomalies, so women in that terrible situation are still not forced to travel, and abolishing the patronizing and medically useless three-day wait. The bill mostly does all of that. There are details that could be ironed out at committee stage. We would prefer to abolish the three-day wait entirely rather than making it optional. Women are perfectly capable of taking as much time as they need to make their own decisions without needing for it to be legislated for. We also favor just deleting section 23 so that abortion is fully decriminalized in line with other medical procedures. But People Before Profit would go further. Neither this bill nor the official review actually gives pregnant people the right to choose. That right is still strictly time-limited. It ends abruptly at 12 weeks. That's regardless of when the woman finds out when they're pregnant or even if they know that they're pregnant at all. A relationship could break down after 12 weeks. Intimate partner violence, which happens in one in eight pregnancies in Ireland, is more likely to begin during pregnancy. The woman could lose her job or become homeless. Her other children could be diagnosed with a serious illness. She could find out that the fetus has a severe but non-fatal anomaly. That means they will need around-the-clock care for their whole life. But none of that matters as far as our abortion law is concerned. 12 weeks and that's it. After 12 weeks, pregnant women in Ireland are still treated as vessels with no right to bodily autonomy, even though the fetus won't be viable for months. After 12 weeks, pregnant people are still forced to travel. If the government refuses to act by 2030, over 1,300 women will be forced to travel. We have to stop that from happening. We need a renewed abortion rights movement to do it. Just like Trump in the US, the far-right here, the Conservative politicians at Fianna Fáil, Fianna Gael, AIN2, Independent Ireland and many other independents want to take away women's hard-won rights. They want to turn them back into handmaidens. We have to take the fight to them and that means fighting for the right to choose and nothing less.