Three-day abortion wait adds ‘unnecessary barriers’ to care, campaigners say

Abortion campaigners have said significant barriers remain to accessing services and described a mandatory three-day waiting period as “paternalistic”. Hundreds gathered outside the Department of Health on Dublin’s Baggot Street on Saturday for the 15th March for Choice, organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC).Participants called for free, safe, legal, local and accessible abortion care nationwide and for an end to the three days women must wait before they can access services. Earlier this week, the Health Service Executive said there was no clinical reason for the stipulation. READ MOREFrom the Department of Health, the marchers walked through the city centre to Molesworth Street, where speakers called on the Government to introduce legislative changes that would improve timely access.ARC co-convener Lauran Kilmartin said there was still “a huge number of barriers” put in the way of women.She said the three-day wait mandated by current legislation “adds unnecessary barriers to people accessing care, particularly if they have to travel” long distances to doctors. She said the wait puts pressure on women when it came to the cost of travel, childcare and difficulties leaving work. “It is also very paternalistic,” she added.Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne for The Irish Times Women should “always be entitled to a reflection period after they go for a consultation with their GP but they shouldn’t be forced into one”.Kilmartin highlighted the problems of access and said that while there was more provision in Dublin “some counties only have like a single provider and if that’s not beside your house, that’s a whole day of travel back and forth and then a whole day of travel again at least three days later”.[ Legal abortion numbers fell to 10,600 during 2025, says reportOpens in new window ]She told The Irish Times that “a lot of the politicians are just dragging their heels, particularly in Government. We’ve had Opposition parties introduce Bills that have just not made it through the various stages. It is just the same nonsense from the same characters about essentially controlling women.”She said she looked forward to a time when such marches were no longer necessary. “I really look forward to a day when we have comprehensive legislation, but I also think we’re probably never going away. There’s a huge far-right movement around the world that is seeking to roll back abortion rights, even in countries that have achieved them, so I think we’ll always have a presence here to keep abortion rights strong.”Corinne Hasson, executive director of the National Women’s Council, said “while we have come so far, we have more to do” when it comes to abortion care in Ireland. The HSE has said there is no clinical reason for the three-wait rule. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne for The Irish Times Marchers walked through the city centre to Molesworth Street. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne for The Irish Times She criticised the three-day wait and said it was “so paternalistic to say to a woman, go home and have another little think about it. We want to see that women’s choices are being respected, that women are trusted to make decisions about their own bodies that they are supported within our healthcare system to do that.”She said medical professionals also needed to be supported and to know “that they’re working within a system that cares about them and that they’re not going to be prosecuted or criminalised for any action they do in terms of helping women.”[ Fine Gael TD compares three-day abortion wait to duration of hangoverOpens in new window ]She also highlighted the challenges migrant women face, “the women who don’t speak English, women who are struggling to get a GP appointment or who don’t understand our system”.And she pointed out that barriers to care can work against women with disabilities as “they find it difficult to get to one appointment, let alone two”.