‘Extremely reckless’: Anti-abortion campaign calls for remote consultations to stop

An anti-abortion campaign has described plans to continue remote consultations for women seeking access to abortion care in the State as “extremely reckless”.

Women seeking an abortion during the coronavirus pandemic did not need to visit a GP in person, but this measure was due to lapse following the end of Covid 19 travel restrictions.

Fresh advice to the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly from the State’s chief medical officer and the Health Service Executive (HSE) is expected to recommend an extension of this measure on a long-term basis, it is understood.

Ahead of that advice, Mr Donnelly has said that telemedicine is now backed by major health organisations.

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Under the existing law, two consultations are required for women who wish to access an abortion if they are within the 12-week gestational period. Three days must elapse between the first and second consultations.

Eilís Mulroy, spokeswoman for the Pro-Life Campaign, said Mr Donnelly was rolling back on “repeated assurances” from his predecessor Simon Harris and the secretary general of the Department of Health. that it was a “temporary Covid-19 response which would lapse following the end of the pandemic”.

“Minister Donnelly has decided to alter the Irish abortion law radically, creating dangerous and unforeseen consequences for women’s health and wellbeing,” she said.

“Telemedicine abortion has major negative consequences in cases of coercive abortion.”

Ms Mulroy was speaking as the campaign hosted its first national in-person conference since 2019, with the theme of the event “Saving Lives and Facing the Future with Hope”. The conference, held at the RDS in Dublin on Saturday, was attended by about 250 people across all age groups.

Ms Mulroy said it was “high time” the Government “stopped pretending that the only issue concerning abortion is how quick and convenient it is to have one”.

“This reckless decision should be reversed,” she said.

Also speaking at the conference was Dr Dermot Kearney, an Irish cardiologist practising in the UK who has provided medical treatment to women to reverse the effects of taking the first abortion pill.

Dr Kearney said “many women change their mind” after they take the first abortion pill and that there was “greater awareness” of using the hormone progesterone as a reversal treatment in the US.

Dr Kearney was previously under investigation by the General Medical Council (GMC) as a result of promoting the practice, however, the case against him was dropped earlier this year.

A review of abortion legislation in the State is due to be completed by the end of this year. Prof Fergal Malone, master of the Rotunda Hospital, has said the three-day wait was “stigmatising” and “paternalistic”.

“The three-day wait is, we feel, wrong in principle. As far as we can see it is the only aspect of healthcare where a grown adult who has full control of their mental capacities is not listened to and is told to go away and come back in three days,” he told The Irish Times at the weekend. “There is no requirement, we feel, to have that there.”

However, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said the anti-abortion campaign had been promised during the referendum repealing the Eighth Amendment in 2018 that “this would be the legislation and it would not change”.

“But three years later they’re already looking to change a number of elements of this legislation,” he said.

The Meath West TD said there was currently a “big push” to change the three-day wait period and that it was “very important” it remained in place.