Dr Aoife Mullaly

And I think it's also really important to say that women can still change their mind, even if there isn't a mandatory waiting period.

And part of the consent process for any medical procedure or treatment is allowing the person to reflect on the decision.

And that's no different for abortion care than it is for any other medical treatment.

So women will still be able to change their mind or will still be given the opportunity to go away and think about their decision.

That isn't going to change at all.

No, I don't think so.

And I think that, you know, the doctors that are providing abortion care have been doing it by and large since 2019.

Our, you know, our very experienced providers will often get a sense from a woman if they have any degree of uncertainty, if there's something else going on for the woman that may...

you know, make this decision difficult.

And I think if, you know, again, if somebody is very close to the gestational limits, if they're 12 weeks and zero days and the day that they see me, I think that would be a reasonable thing for me to be able to waive that period.

Because if I don't, that woman is going to have to travel to access abortion care.

I mean, there's no medical evidence for a three day waiting period.

A mandatory waiting period doesn't exist for any other area of health care, you know, that I can think of.

And as I said, you know, part of the consent process or the discussion process when you're talking about any medical treatment or procedure is to allow people a period of reflection.

And that isn't going to change with this, but it's the mandated part of it that is, you know, clinically, medically completely unnecessary and there is no evidence behind it.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

But I suppose the other part that was written into the legislation was that it was going to be reviewed within three years.

And that did happen by, you know, Marie O'Shea, who's a really experienced barrister.

And, you know, lots of really good evidence-based information fed into that review, including from providers, you know, opinions from women who had access to abortion care themselves.

So it was always in the legislation that it was going to be reviewed.