A Bill that would scrap the mandatory three-day waiting period after an initial consultation for an abortion in Ireland has progressed in the lower house of the Irish Parliament.
The Health (Abolition of Three Day Wait Rule) (Amendment) Bill 2026, which was put to a vote in the Dáil (the lower house of the Irish Parliament) on Wednesday 17 June, passed its Second Stage vote by 86 votes to 70. The Bill is now expected to progress to a committee for further scrutiny.
Ireland’s national parliament, Oireachtas, is made up of the Dáil, its lower house, the Seanad, its upper house, and the President. While the Abolition of Three Day Wait Bill has passed the Second Stage, the Bill must undergo three further stages of scrutiny in the Dáil, in which amendments can be proposed and debated, before being sent to the upper house, the Seanad. Here, the general principles of the Bill will be debated, and further amendments proposed and debated.
Only after completing a total of ten stages will the Bill be sent to the President to be signed into law. So far, the Abolition of Three Day Wait Bill has only passed two.
Similar three-day wait abolition bill rejected previous month
The progress of the Bill follows the rejection of the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026, a Bill that would have also removed the three-day wait, barely a month previously. It would have also widened the grounds under which abortion is permitted up until birth, and was defeated by 85 votes to 30.
While the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, which removed protections for unborn babies and made abortion legal in Ireland, permits abortion up to birth for babies with a “condition likely to lead to death” either “before, or within 28 days of, birth”, the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill sought to remove the 28-day limit. This would have made “fatal” more vaguely defined and potentially allowed for an expanded interpretation under which babies could have their lives ended up to birth.
The Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill also sought to remove almost all criminal penalties for doctors who sought to end the life of an unborn baby at any point up until birth. This included making it no longer an offence for a doctor to “aid, abet, counsel or procure a pregnant woman to intentionally end, or attempt to end, the life of the foetus”.
This would have meant that, so long as there was consent from the woman seeking the abortion, it would likely be extremely difficult to criminally sanction a doctor who performed an abortion even moments before birth. Irish Health Minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, said that this would have constituted the “blanket decriminalization” of abortion law.
By effectively narrowing the scope of conscientious objection, the ability of the state to compel medical practitioners to participate in abortions would also have been expanded by the 2026 Bill. While the 2018 Health Act provides some protections for medical practitioners from being compelled to participate in abortion, the 2026 Bill would have effectively undermined those protections by making it the case that a medical practitioner would be forced to participate in abortion in cases of “a medical emergency”.
“Medical emergency” is left undefined, and the 2018 Act already requires a doctor to intervene in cases in which there is an “immediate risk to the life, or of serious harm to the health, of the pregnant woman”. Doctors could be forced to participate in abortion if there is deemed to be a “medical emergency”, which, being undefined, could be interpreted very broadly. This could have made conscience protections against being forced to participate in abortion far weaker.
Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, votes to abolish three-day wait
The Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), Micheál Martin, said the Reproductive Rights (Amendment) Bill 2026 had “significant flaws”, arguing that it would undermine “the entire legislative template that was enacted post the referendum”. This “template” removed an amendment to the Irish constitution passed in 1983 that had explicitly guaranteed the right to life of unborn children.
Martin reiterated that there was not “a collective party position or Government position” on the issue, and that the vote on the Bill was a free vote since it dealt with a conscience issue.
Despite this, Martin voted in favour of the Health (Abolition of Three Day Wait Rule) (Amendment) Bill 2026, scrapping the three-day waiting period between an initial consultation and an abortion.
The Minister for Justice, Minister for Social Protection, Minister for Housing, Minister for Children, and the Government Chief Whip all voted against the Bill.
The Minister for Children, Norma Foley, said the three-day waiting period was “part of what was put to the people” during the abortion referendum in 2018, meaning she voted against the Bill because she believes the issue is already settled, implying that a further expansion of the abortion law is contrary to what the public wants.
When abortion was made legal in Ireland in 2019, it included a three-day waiting period between an initial consultation with a doctor and the carrying out of an abortion.
Pro Life Campaign spokesperson, Eilís Mulroy, said “It is unconscionable that so many members of [parliament] voted to remove a provision when it has been shown that thousands of women attended an initial abortion appointment but did not proceed after the three-day waiting period”.
“The issue now goes to committee, and no doubt the choreography will begin retrospectively to build the case for why the waiting period needed to be abolished. For such senior members of Government to be party to this charade is shameful. They pretend to listen, but in reality they engage only with voices they already agree with”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is a shame that the Irish Parliament has voted to pass this terrible piece of legislation to remove a vital protection for the lives of unborn children”.
“The evidence shows that thousands of women choose to proceed with having their baby rather than going ahead with an abortion following the three-day waiting period. This gives women a time of reflection, along with time to get support from pregnancy support services or family. The three-day waiting period should stay”.
