Sharon Keogan Defends the Three-Day Waiting Period
Sharon Keogan defended the three-day waiting period for abortion during a hearing on proposed changes to the legislation. She argued that the waiting period gives women time to reconsider and criticised efforts to reduce it to one day.
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Transcript
Thank you Chair and thank you for coming in here today and I do believe that you have
been treated very unfairly and very personally and indeed last week I was
here for the entire witnesses from the HSE and nobody mentioned the credentials
they had, nobody mentioned that some of those witnesses were main drivers on the
repeal the aid campaign. So I find it appalling some people would attack you
personally here today for your beliefs. So we've heard about the number of women
who haven't returned to go ahead with abortion after the three-day wait and a
lot of discussion about why they may not have returned and what that means. What
do you think the evidence that we have at this moment around the women who
didn't return tells us about the three-day wait and what you'd say about
the implications of removing it and reducing it down to one day?
The evidence is very clear that there are thousands of women who haven't gone
on for the second appointment, they haven't completed the abortion and
some of them are coming forward to tell us that this three-day mandatory
wait was the difference between them going ahead and having their baby or not
because they've described that at that moment in time the fear, the terror, the
complexity of decision, they would have taken whatever was offered to them and
that's the whole point and that's why we're here because this concept of
an optional three-day wait, it just doesn't actually work in
practice and we're actually aware of more research that we wanted to bring
today but we didn't get a chance to do it but research from Holland where
abortion has been legal for over 40 years and where they cited in 2018 that
up to between 25 and 32 percent of women who are attending for the first time are
uncertain and a slightly smaller percentage of those go on to change
their mind. So we know that there's uncertainty and we know that people
change their mind and we know that because of its three-day mandatory wait
babies are alive today and women are spared the regret that is a
very, very real phenomenon. I totally agree with you and I do believe there are a lot of
babies alive today because of that three-day wait and you know I'm actually
quite surprised that the drivers behind this bill are Sinn Féin. I really am
quite surprised because a lot of their cohort would be very pro-life and the
referendum was only held in 2018. It's an absolute disgrace to come in here and
try and change this legislation less than eight years on and indeed a lot of
these government parties were on the wrong side when it came to the family
and care referendum in 2024 and if this goes to a referendum you will find once
again that we'll be on the wrong side of the people of this nation. So I know
where I stand on this and thank you for coming in here today.