‘Ireland still doesn’t trust women to be sure about abortion’

Ireland likes to tell itself that the abortion debate is over, that Repeal shut down moral panic and state control over women’s bodies, and that whatever is left is just bureaucratic tidying up. The mandatory three day waiting period blows that story apart. It is not a neutral safeguard or a quiet moment for medical reflection. It is a moral speed bump, deliberately placed to remind women that certainty is suspicious, that abortion should feel heavy, and that even in supposedly post Repeal Ireland, reproductive autonomy still comes with strings attached.

This waiting period has never been about medicine. It has always been about mistrust. It rests on the belief that women cannot be relied upon to know their own minds, that they need to be slowed down in case they change them, and that the law should gently but firmly steer them away from abortion if given the chance. It assumes that abortion chosen quickly is reckless, that abortion chosen confidently is dangerous, and that the “right” decision is always the one that avoids abortion altogether. In other words, it encodes guilt into law.

That paternalistic logic was on full display in the Dáil last month, when a Private Member’s Bill to abolish the three day waiting period failed by the narrowest possible margin. By 73 votes to 71, TDs voted not to restore the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill to the order paper after it lapsed with the dissolution of the last Dáil, making it the closest vote of this parliamentary session. Government TDs were given a free vote on the legislation, which would have removed the waiting period for abortion on request. The result came down to just two votes. According to The Irish Times, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee supported reinstating the Bill, as did Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, despite his opposition to repealing the abortion ban in the 2018 referendum. Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless also voted in favour, along with Ministers of State Timmy Dooley and Christopher O’Sullivan. Ministers of State Emer Higgins and Colm Brophy abstained, as did Fianna Fáil TDs Malcolm Byrne and Naoise Ó Cearúil. Labour, the Social Democrats and several Independent TDs supported the motion, while Independent Ireland TDs present voted against it, as did Aontú. The legislation would have allowed abortion on request prior to foetal viability and access to abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality likely to result in the death of the foetus before birth or within a year of birth.

There is no clinical evidence to support the waiting period. It does not improve health outcomes, reduce harm, or protect patients. What it does do is reinforce the idea that abortion is uniquely regrettable, that it carries an exceptional emotional risk, and that guilt is not just possible but expected. This belief is widespread, deeply ingrained, and wrong.

The idea that women are haunted by lifelong regret after abortion is often treated as obvious truth, but it does not come from medical or psychological consensus. It comes from activism. The term “post-abortion syndrome” was coined in 1981 by Vincent Rue, a U.S. anti abortion advocate who claimed abortion caused a form of post-traumatic stress marked by guilt, anxiety and depression. Post-abortion syndrome has never been scientifically established and is not recognised by the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association. Rue’s later research suggesting a link between abortion and poor mental health outcomes was widely criticised for flawed methods and irreproducible findings, yet it continues to be recycled because it serves a purpose.

That purpose is still evident in Irish public debate. In April 2024, The Irish Times published a dual opinion piece on whether the three day waiting period should be abolished. Eilís Mulroy, solicitor and CEO of the Pro Life Campaign, offered an anecdote about a woman who allegedly changed her mind during the waiting period and, according to Mulroy alone, was “saved from the pain and regret that abortion often brings”. This pain and regret is repeatedly invoked, but it is not a proven or inevitable outcome. When women decide not to proceed with abortions, it is often because of stigma, fear of judgement, and fear of this imagined lifelong guilt, not because abortion itself produces regret. When distress does occur after abortion, it is far more closely linked to social condemnation, lack of support, and isolation, than to the procedure or decision itself.

Those who claim to be concerned about women’s mental wellbeing rarely push for better post abortion supports or work to dismantle stigma. Instead, they rely on fear, using the threat of future regret as a warning sign to keep women in line.

This is not care. It is control.

When we actually examine robust, peer-reviewed research, the evidence around women’s emotions around abortion tells a very different story. A 2015 peer reviewed longitudinal study following 667 women in the United States over three years found that only five per cent reported negative emotions such as regret, guilt, anger or sadness, and even within that small group the reasons for their negative emotions varied widely. The overwhelming majority reported relief and happiness about their decision, regardless of how early or late in pregnancy they had the abortion. Unlike Rue’s work, this study was broadly accepted as methodologically sound. Still, the myth of inevitable guilt refuses to die.

In my own research on Irish women who travelled to the UK for abortions, conducted as part of my MA in Sexuality Studies, none of the women I interviewed regretted their decision. What many did feel, strikingly, was guilt for not feeling guilty. The idea that abortion must be devastating is so dominant that women who feel calm or relieved are left wondering what is wrong with them. The narrative creates distress where none need exist, turning women who are secure in their decisions into emotional outliers who feel compelled to prove their humanity.

Guilt becomes a kind of moral test. Women who do not feel it are viewed with suspicion, while those who do are held up as evidence that abortion is inherently harmful. Many women respond by emphasising their capacity for guilt, reassuring themselves and others that they are still ethical, feeling people. In doing so, they resist the stereotype of the unfeeling woman while also reinforcing the very framework that demands guilt as proof of worth.

At the core of this abortion as guilt narrative is the idea that women must be protected not only from making decisions, but from experiencing the “wrong” emotions. Legal scholar Reva Siegel has described this as a woman protective anti abortion argument. While caution might make sense as personal advice, writing laws based on assumed emotional responses is a form of policing that is applied to abortion alone. Plenty of adult decisions can bring regret or guilt, from infidelity to elective cosmetic surgery, but they do not attract moral crusades or legislative barriers. Knee replacement surgery has dissatisfaction rates of up to 30 per cent, and elective rhinoplasty has reported regret rates of around 40 per cent, yet no one is proposing mandatory waiting periods to save patients from themselves. Only abortion is singled out for this kind of gendered paternalism.

This mindset extends beyond law into media and culture. Stories of women who feel neutral or empowered about their abortions are routinely sidelined. Around the time of Repeal, Hilary Dully and Fintan Connolly’s documentary 50,000 Secret Journeys, commissioned by RTÉ and based on interviews with three Irish women, was pulled from it’s scheduled broadcast after executives deemed it socially irresponsible. Dully later said they were told the programme lacked balance because the women did not express enough remorse.

That selective demand for balance still shapes public debate, echoing the way Irish media handled the same sex marriage referendum, where content and confident LGBTQ people were forced to share airtime with overt hostility in the name of neutrality. Anti-choice advocates benefit from this false equivalence. It frames abortion as a coin toss between relief and devastation, rather than a decision that, for most women, brings clarity and peace. By silencing women who are happy they had abortions, Irish discourse keeps a disproven narrative alive and denies women the language to understand their own experiences.

Abolishing the three day waiting period would not rush anyone into anything. No woman decides on an abortion flippantly – women are very aware of the impact that having a child would have on their lives, and know what is right for them. Abolishing the waiting period would simply remove the assumption that guilt is inevitable, that hesitation is morally superior, and that the State knows women’s emotions better than women themselves. Until Ireland lets go of that fiction, abortion law will continue to police feelings as well as bodies, and women will continue to be told that the only acceptable response to reproductive autonomy is remorse.

Photography by Unsplash.