Five days to recover but not three days to consider? The contradiction of paid leave for abortion

We’re now being told by the Irish government that abortion is upsetting  — so upsetting, in fact, that you are entitled to five days paid leave from work to recover. But the same people are telling us they want to scrap the waiting period of three days to consider and reflect before making the decision. That makes no sense.

The government has recently approved a proposal from Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke TD to draft a Leave for Pregnancy Loss Bill.

This bill, if successful, will provide grounds for a legal entitlement of paid leave from work for women who miscarry before 23 weeks gestation (a pregnancy loss after this period of 23 weeks is considered a stillbirth, which is already treated identically to live-births under the law in terms of statutory leave and benefits). The Leave for Pregnancy Loss Bill will also provide the same benefits to women who chose to abort their unborn baby.

While it should be noted that Minister Burke voted against Sinn Féin’s recent bill to remove the mandatory three-day waiting period before an abortion, the latest proposed amendments for paid leave are backed by the government (including Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris) who did in fact side with Sinn Féin in their attempts to remove the three-day wait.

So, the consensus amongst the members of government seems to be this: the act of having an abortion is serious enough to warrant paid statutory leave — but not so serious that a woman considering aborting her own baby should be required by law to take just three days to reflect on the outcome of that decision.

To add insult to injury, a woman who chooses to end the life of her unborn child is treated identically to a woman who lost her baby through miscarriage. They both have the same entitlements under the proposed bill.

Every single person with sense, and who is not intentionally being dishonest, can see the difference between the two: abortion is the intentional killing of a baby in the womb, miscarriage is the unintentional loss of an unborn baby.

Several members of government and representatives within the Oireachtas have been heard speaking about the emotional toll of pregnancy loss, often from a place of experience. For example, Sinn Féin senator Nicole Ryan, when speaking about the Leave for Pregnancy Loss Bill, has shared her support for the “recognition that pregnancy loss is not simply a medical event but a deeply personal and emotional experience.” Ryan has previously spoken about her own experience with miscarriage.

Indeed, Fine Gael Senator Linda Nelson Murray shared a similar sentiment: “I've had multiple miscarriages myself, so I know that heartbreak first-hand. And I’m far from alone … Miscarriage is still surrounded by silence. Women often grieve alone because of discomfort around it, or people don’t know what to say, or because there just aren’t the words for this kind of loss.”

On the face of it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what either senator has said here. One would be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees with them, or doesn’t sympathise with their history. However, the issue is that both women are speaking as representatives from Fine Gael and Sinn Féin — whose members are pushing for the liberalisation of abortion in Ireland at every single turn.

The idea seems to be that when a woman suffers a miscarriage, it is a tragic loss of a baby. But when a woman elects to have a baby killed in her own womb, it’s not tragic at all - but the same leave applies.

In fact, if you are Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, removing the three-day wait, one of the last remaining safeguards for the unborn child in Ireland, is actually a cause for celebration. It’s a reason to film a cringeworthy clip of you and your co-conspirators leaving government buildings like the pathetic posse of hypocrites that you are.

There is no difference in inherent value between the child aborted and the child miscarried. Both are innocent human beings who deserved unconditional love. There is, however, a stark contrast between the mother who miscarried and a mother who chose to end the life of her own child. Pretending there isn’t is an insult to every woman who has lost a much-loved and much-wanted baby.

There is an obvious push for the idea that the value of human life is subjective, depending entirely on whatever way the wind is blowing at the time. As if what actually determines the mood of the situation or the value of life is how the mother is feeling. The unborn child is completely irrelevant.

Theoretically, when two women avail of statutory leave, one having had a miscarriage and the other an abortion, one deserves sympathy and condolences while the other should be congratulated on receiving her “essential healthcare” and utilising her “choice”.

It seems the lumping together of women who elected to end the life of their own child with those who have suffered a miscarriage is the government attempting to normalise the former under the guise of being compassionate about the latter.

Women who have miscarried should absolutely be entitled to leave from work and time to grieve the loss of their precious baby. Women who have aborted their child, however, need a completely different type of sensitivity and attention. Their choice to receive that particular kind of “essential healthcare” will leave an enduring wound of a completely different sort.

In Ireland, 1 in 6 pregnancies now end in abortion. Instead of the government treating this shocking statistic with the attention it deserves, working to actually help women who think abortion is their only option, they are speeding up the process of killing your unborn child with the removal of the three-day wait.

Is this a sign of a healthy society, one might ask of our government? Is this a shining example of freedom, a beautiful representation of women “having control over their own bodies”? Is this good for the future of our country?

Or is it a sign of a deeply broken culture, a foreshadowing of disaster to come? Because how exactly can one stand over 65,000 babies aborted since 2019, babies being born alive after failed abortions and left to die, hundreds of abortions carried out with no upper gestational limit, over 900 hurting women seeking government-funded counselling after aborting their babies, and think “job well done — I’m proud of this”?