When Hot Press met Ivana Bacik

The tragic death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar has added further weight to the Pro-Choice campaign. As thousands prepare to gather at government HQ on Kildare St. to show their disgust at such a sad loss of life, HotPress looks back on a 2004 interview with Ivana Bacik of the Labour Party.

Ivana gave Paul Nolan her views on the abortion referendum, the X case and how she's noticed a nations attitude towards sexuality slowly changing.

"Well, the referendum simply maintained the status quo, it maintained the X case as law. And I think that things are certainly better than they were, in that we’ve now got information more freely available, there’s a crisis pregnancy agency, and that’s all really good. But there’s still 6,000 women a year having to travel to England, and for a lot of them it’s actually very difficult to get the money to make the arrangements to go. I also practice law as well as teaching it, so I can see how the extant legislation effects people, and that changes still need to be come. But I do think it will eventually happen, although it may be a long, incremental process."

Read the interview in full, here.