The government has canceled promised laws to introduce secure access zones outside maternity hospitals and clinics that provide abortion services.
Activists have charged Health Secretary Stephen Donnelly with tacitly deferring laws to protect women and employees from intimidation when entering health facilities, on charges of “disregarding voters” and “disregarding pregnant women”.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed that it will be using the existing public order law to monitor protests outside maternity hospitals or general practitioners’ offices and has no current plans to introduce safe access zones.
This is a U-turn from 2018, when then Health Secretary Simon Harris said the establishment of 100-meter safety zones around facilities that provide abortion services was a government priority and pledged to accelerate action to ensure women were safe and employees are protected from intimidation.
The ministry now claims that there have been a “limited number” of protests since the introduction of abortion in 2019, which is an “extremely positive development”.
However, only last month, Limerick City and District Councils wrote to Mr Donnelly asking him to prioritize safe access laws in light of ongoing protests against abortion outside Limerick University Maternity Hospital (UMHL) and other health facilities.
Activist Ailbhe Smyth said, “When the government sits back and says ‘Well, you know, we’re just keeping an eye on things’ when there could be protests anytime, that’s really not good enough in response and it’s disrespectful to pregnant women .
Calling on the government to put in place safe access zones, she said, “It is important to put safeguards in place for what we know is a real risk to the physical and mental well-being of people seeking an abortion.”
She said it was “absurd” to cite the number of protests as a reason for not advancing the legislation.
“The vast majority of people have had to restrict their movements and there have been noticeably fewer protests across the board [since Covid].
“This is a very flawed body of evidence on which to make a decision, even a preliminary decision on this law.”
“It is important to take protective measures because we know there is a real risk to the physical and mental well-being of people seeking an abortion,” said Ailbhe Smyth. File image
JoAnne Neary of the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) said the lack of laws is preventing some general practitioners, especially in rural areas, from signing up for abortion services, fearing they will be picketed if this happens.
“It’s not just people who access the specific service that is affected, there are elderly people who come for hospital appointments, they are intimidated by these people, the cleaning staff who go in are used by these people, the doctors, the nurses, the administrative staff.
“If you’ve had a miscarriage and you bring your child home in a little white coffin, do you really want to see these people standing outside with little white coffins?” She asked.
Answering inquiries from Regarding the legislation, a health ministry spokesman said: “There have been a limited number of reports of protests or other actions related to the termination of pregnancy. This is an extremely positive development to date and is becoming a normal part of the Irish health system as intended.
“Where there are problems with protests outside of the health services, there are public order laws in place to protect people who have access to services, employees and residents.”
The spokesman said the department had contacted the Gardaí and all stations had been notified to raise awareness of the problem.
“It has ordered that all protests be monitored and violations of applicable law dealt with. The department has provided the HSE with information about existing public order and other relevant laws for appropriate distribution.”
It is believed that some constitutional issues were raised when the measures were originally drafted. This meant that safe access zones were not included in the main legislation that allowed abortion services since 2019.
However, secure access zones have been successfully implemented in many other jurisdictions including parts of the US, Canada, Australia and the UK.
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