Abortion: the debate that won't go away

Abortion and the woman’s right to choose are once more back on the political agenda.

That may not be what a lot of people want to hear. Since the beginning of the ‘80s, we’ve had numerous referenda on the issue, as well as a landmark Supreme Court decision, constitutional amendments, litigation, appeals and bills (both legislative and pecuniary!). Throughout all of this, emotions frequently ran high: abortion has proved to be a deeply divisive issue in Ireland.
Yet even as we debated the rights and wrongs of the procedure , some 120,000 Irish women have, in the past 25 years, travelled abroad – mainly to the UK – for abortions.
Certainly, there’s an element of hypocrisy here. IIncapable of legislating for something that has impacted directly or indirectly on almost one in 10 adults, we prefer to export the problem. That’s just not good enough. Or so argue the prime movers behind the Safe and Legal in Ireland (SLI) campaign, which aims to be the first major pro-choice initiative to tackle the issue of abortion by raising public awareness of the issues involved.
Natalie McDonnell, a spokesperson for the campaign, which has support from the Irish Family Planning Association and the National Women’s Council of Ireland, is quite clear about SLI’s main objective.
It is “the introduction of safe and legal abortion services in Ireland and an end to the hypocrisy of exiling women in crisis pregnancies, who choose to have an abortion”.
The campaign was launched this time last year and is now gathering momentum, with the unveiling this month of an SLI website.
“Previous campaigns on abortion have always been lead by ‘anti-choice’ groups seeking further regressive and unworkable responses to abortion,” says McDonnell. She mentions the ABC v Ireland case currently before the European Court of Human Rights, in which three Irish women Europe are arguing that, by criminaliising abortion, Ireland is in breach of women’s human rights on four separate grounds, including invasion of privacy and discrimination.
McDonnell is at pains to point out that a decision confirming that the rights of women (under the Convention) have been breached, would not automatically result in a change in the law.
Instead, she says, it would increase pressure on the government to legislate in this area, much as the Norris case did in 1988 in relation to the decriminalization of homosexuality.
Could it be possible, however, that public support for legalising abortion is actually waning rather than increasing?
Recent figures, after all, show a drop in the numbers travelling to the UK for terminations.
“Polling data suggests that there is support, particularly among young people, for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland,” McDonnell responds.
“In the 2003 study by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, 51% of those polled thought that a woman ‘should always have a choice to have an abortion, regardless of the circumstances’ ,” she says. “Only 8% felt that women should never have this choice, 2% had no opinion and the remaining proportion, 39%, felt there should be choice in certain circumstances.”
Whatever the outcome of the European case, the Safe and Legal in Ireland Campaign will meet determined opposition.
Dr. Berry Kiely, medical adviser for the Pro Life Campaign, made clear her opposition to the SLI campaign.
“It saddens me”, she says, “in spite of all the evidence that says abortion is not a good solution for women, they [those behind the new campaign] persist in behaving as if that wasn’t true. The information that we have on the negative consequences of abortion for women seems to be getting stronger all the time.”
For the Pro-Life Campaign, the solution is to put time and energy into offering alternatives to abortion.
“Although adoption is not a panacea for all crisis pregnancies,” Dr Kiely adds, “in talking to people, they are often not aware of how the newer open adoption procedures can function.”
Regarding the European Convention on rights to privacy and against degrading treatment, and similar arguments, Dr. Kiely says: “I cannot claim my human rights to the detriment of yours. The problem I find with the arguments of, say, Ivan Bacik, is that when I’ve asked her to explain what rights she would extend to the unborn, I’ve never understood. I find their approach seems to ignore the existence of the unborn.”
Natalie McDonnell disagrees. “Women do not have abortions lightly,” she says.
“And of course, in a perfect world, it would be better to avoid all unwanted pregnancies. But the truth is that the vast majority of women who have abortions remain convinced that it was the right thing to do, and suffer no adverse affects in the long, or even the short, term.”
The debate, it is clear, has only just started.