Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie HEALTH MINISTER STEPHEN Donnelly will face questions from TDs later this morning ahead of next month’s deadline to initiate a review into abortion legislation.
The chair is likely to have significant scope in shaping the direction of the review, which the minister has promised will take a three-part approach that involves service users, service providers and a public consultation. Anti-abortion activists have highlighted what they say is a lack of information around the provision of abortion services. They have also pushed for legislative changes that would require doctors to administer pain relief to a foetus during abortions after 20 weeks.
The exact nature of the review is yet to become clear with TDs likely to push Donnelly for information on its scope and operation during a meeting of the Oireachtas Health Committee this morning. “I’d like to know who the independent chair is, I would like to know what their role is in forming the review. My understanding is that the role is going to be really important and I’d like to understand the parameters of that role,” she told The Journal.
Hourigan estimated that such a review could take six months and that any further consideration by the TDs would have to reach the “high bar” set by the Oireachtas Eighth Amendment Committee in 2017.
So “pro-choice campaigners” are contrasted with “anti-abortion activists”. And of course we have “pregnant person” instead of “pregnant woman” Does the Journal have a style guide that requires this or is Rónán just letting his own politics pollute his news reporting?