How long must we sing this song? Eamonn McCann on the illegality of the abortion pill in Ireland

Man walks into a police station:
“It was me that robbed the bank.”
Police officer: “Have you any evidence?”
Man: “Here’s my signed confession.”
Officer: “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Man: “Are you not going to arrest me?”
Officer: “Go away.”

It wasn’t a man confessing to a bank robbery. It was 200 women confessing to the PSNI last July that they’d helped import pills to the North to procure abortions. Importing the pills carries a sentence of five years; taking them could mean life.

Procurement isn’t a specific offence in the Republic, but using abortion pills, or otherwise having an abortion, could see you being put away for 14 years.

The action in the North had been organised by Alliance for Choice (AfC). All the confessions were genuine. The intention was to show solidarity and draw attention to the case of a Belfast woman, in her 30s, who had been charged with importing Mifepristone and Misoprostol for use by her pregnant teenage daughter. Best used in combination, Mifepristone and Misoprostol will safely trigger an abortion up to nine weeks into a pregnancy.

The drugs are on the World Health Organisation’s “Essential Medicines” list: that is, the WHO recommends that they are entirely safe and should be available everywhere.

It emerged in January that another woman, a 21-year-old from Co. Down, had been charged under the same Offences Against the Person Act with obtaining the pills and effecting her own abortion. (The Act was passed in 1861, the year Dickens’ Great Expectations was published, Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died and Confederate troops bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina, triggering the American Civil War.)

Asked by the Belfast Telegraph how the PSNI proposed to respond to the dossier of confessions to a crime regarded by the law as extremely serious, Detective Superintendent Andrea McMullan explained: “It would depend on the specific circumstances of an incident as to whether or not an offence has been committed and each case would be investigated on its own merit.”

Blather. All of the signatories were readily available to spell out the specific circumstances in which they had taken the pills or had obtained them to be taken by somebody else. But none was invited to call down to the station to answer a few questions.

As for, “Each case would be investigated on its own merit” – more blather. There has been no investigation of any kind into any of the 200 cases. None of the women has been asked even to confirm her identity, much less questioned about the content of her confession.

“Why should those two women be made scapegoats for something which the authorities know is being availed of by hundreds of other women every year?” says Sha Gillespie of AfC. “They are being made examples of, picked off as individuals and punished for daring to make their own choice – even when the authorities are obviously afraid to take a large number of women on. We shouldn’t have to put up with this.”

Women Help Women – www. womenhelp.org – assists those in need to access abortion pills. It comprises trained counsellors and activists who will give reliable answers to any questions you may have. It works in collaboration with a doctor and other medical personnel.

Women on Waves – www. womenonwaves.org – is the Dutch organisation which sails an “abortion ship” outside the territorial waters of countries which deny women the right to choose and provides terminations for women who come on board. WOW will also provide abortion pills.

The first port of call for many Irish women looking for an abortion is the UK-based charity, Abortion Support Network (ASN). It will point you towards an appropriate facility for either a surgical or medical termination. Last year, ASN helped 550 Irish women with unwanted pregnancies. The number they help is rising year on year, as the availability and safety of Mifepristone and Misoprostol become better known.

ASN founder Mara Clarke told the Guardian: “Are we giving them information about something which is illegal? Absolutely. But do we feel it’s wrong? Absolutely not. I totally hold the law in contempt. We have never been quiet or shy about the fact that we do this.”

ASN can be contacted from the Republic at 0044 78976 11593, or (from the North) at 07897 611593, or at info@ abortionsupport.org.uk.

Agencies in the Republic which won’t provide abortion pills but offer unbiased advice and will help you exercise your options include: the Irish Family Planning Association (www.ifpa.ie, 1850 495 051); the Well Woman Clinic (www.wellwomancentre.ie, 01 660 9860, €50 fee); FemPlus (www. femplus.ie, 01 830 0630); Marie Stopes Reproductive Choices (www. reproductivechoices.ie, €100 fee).

In the North, the Family Planning Association offers non-directive advice on pregnancy choices and post-abortion counselling – www.fpa. org.uk/northern-ireland, or ‘phone 0345 122 8687.

Many under-25s tend to consult the Brook Clinic – www.brook.org.uk, or ‘phone 028 9032 8866.

It may well be that women in the North will feel compelled to adopt more determined tactics than signing an open letter testifying to their breaking of the law. In the Assembly last month, the DUP and the SDLP combined to vote down two mild measures allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest, and in the case of fatal foetal abnormality.

In the Republic, women’s voices grow ever louder for repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Meanwhile, across the island more and more women are making the choice for themselves by obtaining the abortion pill.