Abortion regret is a myth. Irish women don’t need laws to make them ‘reflect’ on their choices | Roe McDermott
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/26/abortion-trauma-myth-irish-women-patriarchy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Posted by Usernameoverloaded
10 Comments
How about don’t be weird about it and leave them off to make the decision.
Its no-ones place but theirs
I’ll wait to hear what Wade McDermott has to say.
Did the Grauniad also publish an article in favour of the waiting period for balance w.r.t. this opinion piece?
The proposed legislation was defeated because the wording used was too vague and open to misunderstanding.
Read what the minister said in that debate.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2026-05-13/speech/38/
Theres a cooling off period for changing utility providers, this is a much bigger decision.
I think in most cases it’s not an easy decision, and some women will regret it. It’s something they will have to live with either way.
During the repeal the eighth campaign the cooling period was a key factor for people like me that were worried about women being pressured into it.
Although from what I know the process takes longer from the initial contact to the procedure in practice.
Here’s an insight: abortion is legal here up to 12 weeks. A Harmony test (testing for Down Syndrome and other abnormalities) can only be done after 10 weeks. Results take about 8 working days to come back.
Women have an EXTREMELY small window of time within which to get that appointment and act on the results.
On multiple occasions, I’ve had to “request” an abortion in advance of getting Harmony results “just in case I needed it”. Luckily, I’ve always had to cancel those requests. But that is NOT abortion regret, and somehow I fear that those are the statistics being used to evidence it.
I would rather kms than be forced to grow and birth a child that I do not want.
There is no country or religion that bastardises men’s rights. Women’s are not up for debate.
The article states that more people regret knee surgery than abortion. This is where I do my public service announcement: People regret knee surgery either because they had a poor surgeon and there were complications, or because they didn’t do their physio after the surgery and ended up worse than before. Nobody regrets successful knee surgery.
I can’t emphasise this enough: if you have knee replacement surgery, do your physio to the letter. My aunt had both knees replaced on two separate occasions. Each time, she did her post op physio routine to the letter, every day for nearly two hours, for months. At 86, she’s flying around and delighted with herself.
Everything in my body belongs to me
She’s a bit vague about who is making these claims.
I actually agree with the argument, but it’s badly made here.