The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), one of Ireland’s leading abortion agencies, is calling for the country to eliminate its law protecting preborn children from abortion after 12 weeks. Instead, it wants abortion available until birth.
IFPA chief executive Niall Behan claimed the current limits are unfair to women.
“Due to the rigid 12-week limit for abortion care, hospital referrals for pregnancies over 10 weeks can be intensely pressurized and very stressful for women, IFPA doctors, and hospital staff,” Behan said, according to Irish News. “Our experience reflects World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance, which is clear that gestational limits cause harm and should be removed.”
“We also know from our specialist pregnancy counseling service that women are excluded from abortion care because of the 12-week limit.” Behan said. “Our counselors support women who are denied care in Ireland and forced to travel abroad for abortion services. These women experience significant stress, distress, and stigma, as well as enduring the financial and logistical burdens of accessing healthcare in a different country. Forcing people to travel for abortion care is cruel and inhumane. It must stop.”
But despite efforts to completely ignore the human that is killed in an abortion, the D&E (dilation and evacuation) method, generally used to kill preborn children from 14-22 weeks gestation (beginning just after the first trimester), actively dismembers a living human being that has been able to feel pain since at least the end of the first trimester, if not before:
Roisin Venables, IFPA director of counseling, echoed the pro-abortion sentiments of others. “One day can make a difference between a woman being able to access abortion services here or being forced to travel because of the 12-week rule. That’s highly distressing,” she said.
Abortion has been legal in Ireland since January 2019. It is currently allowed through 12 weeks of pregnancy, though women may abort after 12 weeks if there is a fatal fetal abnormality, or if the mother’s health or life is in danger (though an induced abortion to intentionally kill a preborn child is not necessary to save a mother’s life).
When lawmakers passed The Termination of Pregnancy Act in Ireland, the Department of Health promised to conduct a legislative review after three years to determine whether or not to make any changes to the legislation. As that review is currently underway, a number of pro-abortion groups in addition to IFPA have been taking the opportunity to lobby for expanded abortion.
Despite the call to loosen abortion restrictions, pro-lifers in Ireland are speaking out, too. In September, thousands of pro-life advocates joined together at the March for Life in Dublin, with the aim of standing in defense of the preborn while demanding that pro-life viewpoints be considered as part of the review process.
“Today, we are uniting with pro-life Oireachtas members to demand that the Government address Ireland’s spiraling abortion rate and make way for positive alternatives to abortion to be promoted,” said Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign. “In the first three years since the new abortion law was introduced, 20,718 Irish abortions have taken place. This is a national tragedy that demands urgent action to ensure that women contemplating abortion are fully informed about positive alternatives prior to any abortion happening.”
