Maire Treasa Ni Cheallaigh

She started off a really good conference, Women in Medicine.

And we got a great talk there a few years ago.

And really eye opening for me is that with the growth of social media and monitoring and smartphones and all this kind of stuff, one of the last refuges for a woman or anyone in any kind of trouble at home or whatever is their local GP office.

That might be the only place where they can pick up a phone and have a phone call in privacy.

or maybe in their local maternity unit, for example.

So that's just one example.

The three-day wait as well, I know, Brenda, you made the argument as well about how, you know, how do we know that these people perhaps didn't change their mind or did they feel if that three-day wait wasn't there that they might go ahead with it too soon?

And I'm sure there must absolutely be an element of regret for people who even with the three-day wait may have decided, actually, I wish I didn't make that decision.

But on the other hand, we have to decide that these people are adults.

And no doctor who is providing these services is going to make somebody... Well, you're here now, you have to make a decision.

It doesn't work that way.

It doesn't matter what the medication is, be it a statin for your cholesterol or something that might induce a termination of pregnancy.

We will always say...

take your time, make a decision, you can come back tomorrow.

The trouble is sometimes a woman might not know she's pregnant until nine, ten weeks, then her window is closing.

And also I would say as well, by the time a woman picks up the phone to have that conversation or goes into the doctor to have that conversation, she has thought of nothing else.

I think that's a very contrary way to take it.

We don't know, for example, like of these people who didn't go ahead with it.

For example, we don't know.

Did they go elsewhere?